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ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  CONSPIRACY 


TRIAL    OF   THE    CONSPIRATORS   BY  A 
MIIJTAR  Y   COMMISSION 


AND  A  REVIEW  OF  THE  TRIAL  OF  JOHN  H.  SURRATT 


BY  T.   M.  HARRIS 

LATE  BRIGADIER-GENERAL  U.  S.  V.  AND  MAJOR-GENERAL  BY  BREVET 
A   MEMBER   OF  THE   COMMISSION 


BOSTON,  MASS. 
AMERICAN    CITIZEN    COMPANY 

7   BROMFIELD   STREET 

JOHN  K.  HASTINGS,  SELLING  AGENT 

47-49  CORNHILL,  BOSTON 


MEMORIAL 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1892, 

BY  T.  M.  HARRIS, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


PRESS   AND   BINDERY  OF 
HISTORICAL  PUBLISHING  CO., 

PHILADELPHIA,   PA 


EXPLANATION. 


IT  is  perhaps  necessary  that  the  author  should  explain  the 
•sense  in  which  the  term,  "  Great  Conspiracy,"  in  the  title  of  his 
book,  is  used.  It  is  not  at  all  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it 
is  used  by  General  Logan  in  his  book.  In  that  it  is  used  as 
the  equivalent  of  the  Great  Rebellion,  only  that  it  broadly 
covers  all  that  led  to  and  culminated  in  the  war  against  the 
government,  designated  as  "  The  Rebellion."  It  is  only  here 
used  to  designate  the  conspiracy  that  resorted  to  the  policy  of 
assassination  as  a  means  to  give  aid  to  the  rebellion ;  and  the 
reader  who  follows  the  author  through  will  then  be  able  to  per 
ceive  why  he  designates  this  a  "  Great  Conspiracy." 


ivi  106695 


PREFACE. 


IT  is  now  more  than  twenty-seven  years  since  the  assassina 
tion  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  —  an 
event  of  the  greatest  importance  at  the  time,  not  only  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  but  to  the  civilized  world.  The 
trial  of  the  conspirators  by  a  military  commission  created  the 
greatest  possible  interest ;  and  the  proceedings  and  testimony 
were  published  from  day  to  day  by  all  of  the  great  newspapers 
of  the  country,  and  read  with  avidity.  The  judgment  of  those 
who  carefully  studied  the  testimony  at  the  time  was  formed 
upon  a  competent  knowledge  of  the  facts. 

And  yet,  even  then,  the  fate  of  the  prisoners  on  trial  before 
the  Commission,  to  be  found  innocent  or  guilty  according  to  the 
evidence,  constituted  the  great  point  of  interest,  and  thus  tended 
to  divert  attention  from  the  evidence  against  the  other  parties 
charged  not  only  with  being  co-conspirators,  but  as  being  the 
instigators  of  the  plot. 

Since  that  time  a  new  generation  has  come  on  to  the  stage  of 
action,  and  as  the  official  report  of  the  trial  by  Ben  Pittman, 
published  at  the  time,  is  in  the  hands  of  but  comparatively  few 
people,  a  concise  history  of  this  great  event,  in  popular  form, 
but  founded  on  the  evidence,  seemed  to  the  writer  to  be  due 
and  called  for  at  the  present  time. 

The  necessity  for  this  has  been  emphasized  by  a  recent  re 
vival  of  efforts  that  have  been  made  from  time  to  time,  ever 

5 


6  PREFACE. 

smce  the  executi6ii  of  the  assassins  that  were  condemned  to 
death,  to  prejudice  public  sentiment  against  the  government  by 
the  assumption  of  the  innocence  of  one  of  the  parties  executed 
—  Mrs.  Surratt 

Only  a  few  months  since  (May  30,  1891),  La  Salle  Insti 
tute  in  New  York  City  was  crowded  by  an  audience  that  came 
together  expecting  to  hear  Cardinal  Gibbons  and  Father  Walter 
review  the  case  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  Neither  the  cardinal  nor  the 
father  appeared,  but  a  Mr.  Sloane  arose  and  read  to  the  audi 
ence  a  letter  from  Father  Walter  on  the  subject.  This  letter 
contained  nothing  new  to  those  who  were  familiar  with  the  case 
at  the  time  of  its  occurrence.  It  was  substantially  the  same 
that  was  published  over  his  signature  shortly  after  her  execu 
tion.  After  stating  that  he  was  her  confessor,  and  that  his 
priestly  vows  did  not  permit  him  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  the 
confessional,  he  very  calmly  and  positively  states  his  belief  in 
her  entire  innocence,  basing  that  belief  on  what  he  professes  to 
know.  He  then  relates  the  efforts  he  made  to  get  a  reprieve 
and  a  postponement  of  her  execution  for  a  few  days,  and 
expresses  the  belief  that  could  he  have  succeeded  in  this  for 
only  ten  days  he  could  have  saved  her  life. 

He  then  complains  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was  treated 
by  the  President,  Andrew  Johnson,  and  Judge  Holt,  who  referred 
him  back  and  forth,  each  to  the  other,  and  that  between  them 
he  could  get  nothing  accomplished. 

A  story  has  also  been  gotten  up  of  a  Union  soldier  who  was. 
a  member  of  the  conspiracy  and  knew  all  of  its  members  and 
secrets,  who  affirms  the  innocence  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  The  most 
rational  and,  at  the  same  time,  charitable  thing  to  be  said 
about  this  story  is,  that  this  Union  soldier  was  manufactured 
for  the  occasion. 

That  portion  of  the  press  of  to-day  that  inherits  the  old  cop- 


PREFA  C£.  7 

per-head  animus,  greedily  publishes  all  such  things  as  these,  and 
indulges  in  the  wildest  latitude  of  editorial  comment  and  false 
statements.  They  have  buried  all  of  the  members  of  the  Com 
mission  but  one  many  times ;  have  followed  all  of  the  princi 
pal  actors  in  the  scene  to  violent  and  miserable  deaths ;  and  have 
made  it  manifest  that  had  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  the  Universe 
viewed  the  matter  in  their  light,  and  been  as  swift  in  his  retri 
butions  as  they  would  have  had  him  to  be,  not  one  who  had 
any  connection  with  the  arrest,  trial,  and  execution  of  the  assas 
sins  of  the  great  and  good  President  would  have  been  left  alive. 

They  have  manifested  an  especial  venom  of  feeling  against  the 
then  Secretary  of  War,  Hon.  E.  M.  Stanton,  iterating  and  reit 
erating  the  absurd  and  false  statement  that  he  died  from  the 
violence  of  his  own  hand,  being  crazed  wirh  remorse.  Why  they 
should  thus  select  Mr.  Stanton  as  the  especial  object  of  their 
hatred  cannot  be  seen  from  any  connection  he  had  with  this  case. 
His  part,  though  important  and  involving  great  responsibility, 
was,  in  fact,  a  very  subordinate  one.  He  selected  the  officers  to 
be  embraced  in  the  order  of  detail  for  the  Commission,  under 
the  order  of  the  President,  that  was  all.  Judge  Holt  conducted 
the  trial  and  recorded  the  proceedings  under  the  President's 
order,  and  when  he  handed  that  record  over  to  the  President 
his  connection  with  the  case  ended.  President  Johnson  then  held 
the  temporal  destiny  of  this  woman,  as  well  as  that  of  all  the 
others  convicted,  in  his  own  hand.  He  and  he  alone  was  respon 
sible. 

From  all  this  it  appears  that  the  time  has  come  when  a  clear, 
concise  history  of  this  conspiracy  and  trial  should  be  given  to 
the  world.  To  this  task  the  writer  has  addressed  himself,  and 
he  offers  this  volume  as  the  result  of  his  labors.  The  facts 
herein  narrated  in  regard  to  the  assassination,  as  well  as  to  the 
parts  enacted  by  each  of  the  individual  members  of  the  conspir- 


8  PREFACE. 

acy,  are  drawn  from  the  testimony  before  the  Commission.  They 
have  been  thrown  into  the  form  of  a  connected  narrative,  and 
there  has  been  nothing  stated  as  a  fact  but  what  is  fully  sustained 
by  the  evidence  which  formed  the  basis  of  the  decisions  of  the 
Commission.  Nothing  has  been  admitted  into  this  narrative  but 
what  rests  on  the  specific  testimony  of  unimpeachable  witnesses. 
The  author  only  deems  it  necessary  that  the  opinion,  or  belief, 
of  Father  Walter,  and  all  others  of  his  persuasion,  shall  be  con 
fronted  by  the  testimony  in  the  case,  in  order  that  an  intelligent 
judgment  shall  be  reached.  At  the  time  of  this  trial  there  were 
just  two  classes  of  people  in  this  country  —  the  friends  and  the 
enemies  of  the  government.  The  former  were  united  and  deter 
mined  in  their  purpose  and  effort  to  preserve  and  perpetuate 
the  government  established  by  our  fathers  under  the  constitution 
that  included  in  its  purpose  and  provisions  the  union  of  the  states 
and  made  us  a  nation.  The  latter  were  madly  bent  on  its  over 
throw,  and  so  judged  favorably  or  unfavorably  of  the  occurrences 
of  the  times,  as  they  tended  to  favor  or  hinder  the  accomplish 
ment  of  their  purposes.  The  feelings  of  both  parties  had  been 
wrought  up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  intensity  because  the  mat 
ters  at  issue  had  been  submitted  to  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword. 
The  result  of  this  appeal  was  clearly  foreshadowed  at  the  time 
of  the  assassination  of  the  President,  and  before  the  conclusion 
of  the  trial  of  his  murderers  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy  had 
collapsed.  The  rebellion  was  virtually  overcome.  The  deep 
political  scheme  to  give  it  a  new  lease  of  life  and  bring  to  its 
aid  new  elements  of  success  by  the  assassinations  that  had  been 
planned,  had  been  too  long  delayed,  and  its  execution  had 
become  utterly  impracticable.  The  soldiers  of  the  rebellion  had 
fought  their  fight  —  a  brave  and  plucky  and  protracted  fight. 
They  realized  the  hopelessness  of  their  cause  and,  though  greatly 
disappointed  and  mortified  at  their  failure,  they  had  the  con- 


PREFACE.  9 

sciousness  that  they  had  done  all  that  brave  men  could  do  to 
win  success,  and  so  were  ready  to  accept  the  result,  return  to 
their  homes,  and  resume  citizenship  under  the  government  they 
were  unable  to  overthrow.  Not  so  with  the  secret  active  ene 
mies  of  the  government.  They  were  not  willing  to  accept  defeat, 
but  were,  nevertheless  (happily  for  the  country),  in  a  condition 
that  they  could  only  show  their  enmity  by  maligning  and  villify- 
ing  the  authorities  they  were  unable  to  overthrow;  and  of  this 
privilege  they  fully  availed  themselves.  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  the  magnitude,  scope,  and  purpose  of  the  assassination  con- 
piracy  are  unknown  to  the  present  generation.  All  that  a  large 
majority  of  those  who  have  come  upon  the  stage  of  action  since 
that  time  know  of  this,  in  many  respects,  one  of  the  most  import 
ant  trials  that  has  ever  occurred  in  our  history,  is  what  they  have 
learned  through  the  efforts  of  these  vituperators ;  and  they  have 
never  seen  it  referred  to  other  than  as  the  trial  of  Mrs.  Surratt. 
The  Commission  was  not  called  upon  to  render  a  decision  as  to 
the  innocence  or  guilt  of  the  persons  charged  by  the  govern 
ment  with  being  co-conspirators  with  John  H.  Surratt  and  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  who  were  not  in  the  custody  of  the  government 
and  so  not  before  the  Commission ;  but  the  government,  having 
assumed  the  responsibility  of  charging  Jefferson  Davis,  George 
N.  Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary, 
Clement  C.  Clay,  George  Harper,  George  Young,  and  others,  with 
thus  conspiring  to  kill  and  murder  Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew 
Johnson,  Wm.  H.  Seward,  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  was  under  the 
necessity  of  vindicating  its  honor  and  dignity  before  the  world 
by  presenting  the  evidence  in  its  possession  on  which  its  charge 
was  founded.  It  will  be  my  purpose  to  present  this  evidence, 
and  to  show  the  full  significance  and  purpose  of  the  plot,  and 
with  whom  it  originated.  Many  of  the  prominent  actors  in  this 
tragedy  have  been  summoned  before  a  higher  tribunal  to 


10  PREFACE. 

answer  for  the  deeds  done  in  the  body.  There  we  are  con 
tent  to  leave  them,  assured  that  "  all  things  are  naked  and 
open  to  the  eyes  of  Him  with  whom  they  have  to  do,"  and 
that  there  will  be  no  mistakes  made  in  the  decisions  there  ren 
dered.  And  toward  those  who  yet  remain,  it  is  with  no  feel 
ings  of  personal  enmity  that  the  author  shall  write.  He  only 
knows  them  as  they  are  revealed  in  the  testimony,  and  by  this 
he  shall  endeavor  to  deal  fairly  and  candidly.  They  made 
themselves  conspicuous  in  their  connection  with  public  affairs 
of  the  greatest  importance,  and  so  their  acts  belong  to  the 
public.  If  they  have  made  a  bad  record,  it  is  due  to  the  truth 
of  history  that  their  acts  shall  be  fully  unfolded.  History  is  a 
truthful  narration  of  events  that  have  occurred ;  and  its  con 
clusions  must  be  based  on  a  consideration  of  all  of  the  facts, 
taken  in  their  proper  order  and  relation  to  the  events.  The 
aim  of  the  writer  has  been  to  give  a  candid  and  reliable  his 
tory  of  the  Great  Conspiracy  as  deduced  from  the  evidence 
before  the  Commission  and  to  be  found  in  the  official  report 
of  the  proceedings  published  by  Ben  Pittman  immediately  after 
the  trial. 

The  asperities  of  the  great  conflict  have  been  largely  oblit 
erated  by  the  many  happy  years  of  peace  that  have  inter 
vened  since  that  unhappy  period.  We  have  but  one  country 
and  one  flag,  which  almost  all  have  learned  to  love  as  of  old. 
Let  us  draw  wisdom  and  virtue  from  the  history  of  the  past, 
learning  as  well  from  our  errors  and  mistakes  as  from  our 
virtues,  that  we  may,  by  a  course  of  well-doing,  gain  the  favor 
of  Him  who  holds  the  destiny  of  nations  in  His  hands,  and 
who  pulls  down  one  and  sets  another  up. 

The  stability  of  a  popular  government  must  rest  on  the  virtue 
and  intelligence  of  its  people.  Our  institutions  were  established 
on  this  basis  alone,  and  on  this  alone  can  they  stand.  The 


PREFACE.  ii 

divorcement  of  Church  and  State  by  the  framers  of  our  con 
stitution  was  one  of  the  wise  conclusions  which  they  drew  from 
the  past;  but  it  was  no  part  of  their  purpose  to  divorce  relig 
ion  from  the  State.  On  the  contrary,  their  politics  was  a  part 
of  their  religion  and  was  deduced  from  the  teachings  of  God's 
word.  Let  us  beware  of  the  effort  of  the  present  time  to 
divorce  politics  from  religion  because  we  rightly  divorce  the 
Church  from  the  State. 

There  is  no  morality  that  can  make  a  man  a  valuable  and 
a  reliable  citizen  of  a  free  state  except  the  morality  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  taught  in  God's  word.  It  is  the  duty, 
therefore,  of  every  parent  and  every  teacher  to  instill  into  the 
minds  of  our  youth  this  Christian  morality  as  a  basis  for  the 
highest  patriotism  and  noblest  citizenship.  Let  the  American 
flag  float  over  every  school-house,  and  the  morality  of  the 
Bible  be  taught  with  the  authority  inherent  in  God's  word. 
Then  will  the  days  of  assassinations,  whether  political  or  relig 
ious,  come  to  an  end.  Owing  to  a  variety  of  causes,  the 
facts  connected  with  this  most  important  event  in  our  nation's 
history  have  been  slurred  over  and  obscured.  Scarcely  one  in 
a  thousand  of  our  people  to-day  have  any  knowledge  of  their 
existence. 

The  object  of  the  writer  will  be  to  revive  them  and  bring 
them  out  clearly  to  the  knowledge  of  all. 

T.  M.  HARRIS. 

RITCHIE  C.  II.,  W.  Va. 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE        ......                                   . 

CONTENTS       ........... 

CHAPTER   I. 
INTRODUCTORY 

17 

CHAPTER    II. 
PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  EXECUTION  OF  THE  PLOT 24 

CHAPTER    III. 

ASSASSINATION    OF   THE    PRESIDENT    AND    ATTEMPTED   ASSASSINATION   OF 

SECRETARY  SEVVARD          .........          34 

CHAPTER    IV. 
THE  NEWS  COMMUNICATED  TO  THE  WORLD,  AND  ITS  EFFECT  .        .          47 

CHAPTER   V. 
UNRAVELLING  THE  PLOT  —  PURSUIT   AND   CAPTURE  OF  BOOTH  AND  HEROLD 

—  DEATH  OF  BOOTH 51 

CHAPTER    VI. 

UNRAVELLING   THE    CONSPIRACY  —  ARREST    OF    SPANGLER,    O'LAUGHLIN, 

ATZERODT,  MUDD,  AND  ARNOLD 60 

CHAPTER   VII. 
QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY  TO  THE  TRIAL  —  WHAT  SORT  OF  TRIAL  SHOULD 

BF  GIVEN,  ClVIL  OR  MILITARY          ........  82 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
A    MILITARY    COMMISSION  —  ITS    NATURE,    CONSTITUTION,    DUTIES,    AND 

JURISDICTION    ...........  96 

CHAPTER    IX. 
CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  COMMISSION,  AND  TRIAL 98 

CHAPTER   X. 

EVIDENCE  IN  REGARD  TO  ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED  IN  THE  CHARGE 
AND  SPECIFICATIONS,  FOR  WHICH  DAVIS  AND  HIS  CANADA  CABI 
NET  WERE  RESPONSIBLE 118 

13 


14  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   XI. 
EVIDENCE  PRESENTED  BY  THE  GOVERNMENT  TO  SUSTAIN  ITS  CHARGE  AND 

SPECIFICATIONS 147 

CHAPTER   XII. 
THE  GOVERNMENT   WITNESSES   AGAINST   DAVIS   AND   HIS   ASSOCIATES   IN 

THIS  CRIME      ...........        163 

CHAPTER   XIII. 
A  CRITICISM  OF  NICOLAY  AND  HAY 177 

CHAPTER   XIV. 
JACOB  THOMPSON'S  BANK  ACCOUNT  —  WHAT  BECAME  OF  THE  MONEY        .         182 

CHAPTER   XV. 
THE  CASE  OF  MRS.  SURRATT 192 

CHAPTER   XVI. 
FATHER  WALTER          ...........         204 

CHAPTER   XVII. 
CONCLUSION          ............        211 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 
FLIGHT  AND  CAPTURE  OF  JOHN  H.  SURRATT 212 


PART     II. 

CHAPTER   I. 


INDICTMENT  AND  TRIAL 


CHAPTER    II. 
A  CRITICISM  OF  THE  DEFENSE     .........        253 

CHAPTER    III. 

TREATMENT   OF    WITNESSES   AND   EVIDENCE   BY    THE    COUNSEL   FOR  THE 
DEFENSE,    AND    THEIR    ANIMUS   TOWARD  THE   GOVERNMENT  AND 
APPEALS  TO  THE  POLITICAL  PREJUDICES  OF  JURORS       .        .        .        259 
APPENDIX     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         317 

PREFACE  TO  APPENDIX         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         319 

ARGUMENT  OF  JOHN  A.  BINGHAM        ........         325 

CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT        .        .        407 


PART  I. 

ASSASSINATION   OF    LINCOLN. 


'5 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

THE  rebellion  of  the  slave-holding  states,  and  the  attempt  to 
establish  a  separate  government  by  force  of  arms,  was  solely  in 
the  interest  of  the  institution  of  slavery.  The  Southern  Confed 
eracy  was  to  rest  on  this  institution  as  its  corner-stone.  By  the 
establishment  of  the  Confederacy  it  was  intended  to  end,  forever, 
the  agitation  of  this  question,  and  establish  the  system  of  human 
slavery  as  one  of  the  permanent  institutions  of  the  world.  And 
all  this  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era  !  Prepara 
tory  to  this  the  pulpit  and  the  press  had  been  suborned,  the 
Christian  conscience  of  the  country  had  been  debauched,  and  the 
doctrine  that  slavery  was  a  Divine  institution  was  taught,  and 
accepted  as  true,  by  one-half  of  the  American  people. 

A  doctor  of  divinity,  or  even  a  common  preacher,  who  could 
prove  this  to  his  own  satisfaction,  and  that  of  his  hearers,  at  once 
achieved  popularity,  and  had  his  great  learning  and  ability  heralded 
by  the  secular  press  throughout  the  South  land.  Neither  was  this 
kind  of  preaching  confined  to  the  South.  It  found  a  distinct  and 
earnest  echo  in  many  places  in  the  North.  It  was  argued,  and  no 
doubt  sincerely  believed,  that  slavery  was  the  best  condition  for 
securing  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  the  African  race  —  the  condi 
tion  in  which  the  negro  could  be  most  useful  to  the  world;  that 
his  condition  had  been  greatly  improved  by  his  transplantation  from 
a  heathen 'land  and  the  environments  of  barbarism  to  a  Christian 
land  and  civilized  and  Christian  environments;  and  that  subjection, 
to  a  higher  and  superior  race  was  necessary  to  his  deriving  the  high 
est  benefit  from  the  change.  Slavery,  it  was  taught,  Was  a  patri 
archal  institution,  and  that  it  was  only  through  it  that  the  highest 
ideal  of  human  civilization  could  be  attained.  It  was  natural  that 
2  17 


1  8  ASSASSIA'A  TION  OF  LINCOLN. 

a  people  whose  judgment  had  crystalized  around  such  opinions  as 
these  should  be  intolerant  of  opposition,  as  they  had  closed  the 
door  to  discussion  on  this  question  ;  and  so  for  several  generations  a 
contrary  opinion  was  not  tolerated,  or  allowed  to  find  expression,  in 
the  slave-holding  states.  The  agitation  of  this  question,  in  its 
moral  aspects,  by  constantly  increasing  numbers  of  earnest,  able 
men  in  the  North,  at  last  led  to  the  organization  of  a  political 
party  opposed  to  this  institution,  and  the  question  of  slavery  thus 
became  a  political  question. 

•  The  friends  of  the  institution  instinctively  recognized  the  danger 
that  thus  confronted  them,  and  began  to  strengthen  their  fences  by 
most  stringent  measures  to  repress  discussion  and  shut  out  the 
light.  This  was  a  tacit  admission  that  they  felt  themselves  unable 
to  stand  before  the  world  in  argument.  It  may  be  laid  down  as 
an  axiom,  that  whenever  a  political  party  forecloses  discussion  on 
any  subject,  but  more  especially  on  a  great  moral  issue,  it  is  not 
only  on  the  wrong  side  of  that  issue,  but  has  an  intuitive  percep 
tion  of  that  fact. 

It  may  also  be  accepted  as  an  axiom,  that  the  more  inconsistent 
a  man's  attitude  is  on  any  great  moral  question  the  more  intolerant 
will  he  be  of  opposition.  Not  only  were  the  most  stringent  laws 
passed  to  prevent  the  discussion  of  the  institution  of  slavery  in  its 
moral  aspects  in  the  Southern  States,  but  also  the  most  lawless 
and  violent  measures  were  resorted  to,  so  that  it  was  as  much  as 
a  man's  life  was  worth  to  undertake  to  make  a  public  argument 
against  slavery  in  a  slave-holding  state,  and  even  to  be  found  earn 
estly  opposed  to  the  institution  in  sentiment  was  to  put  personal 
safety  in  jeopardy.  The  making  of  this  question  a  political  ques 
tion  tended  largely  to  de-sectionalize  it.  No  party  could  hope 
to  succeed,  as  a  National  party,  without  the  vote  of  the  South,  and 
this  could  only  be  secured  by  concessions  to  the  demands  of  the 
slave  holders  in  the  interest  of  that  institution  ;  and  so  the  party 
that  was  willing  to  concede  the  most  to  their  demands  became  the 
dominant  party  in  the  nation.  Thus  the  leading  Democratic  poli 
ticians,  all  over  the  North,  became  the  staunch  advocates  of 
slavery ;  and  we  all  know  with  what  blind  confidence,  and  fierce 
determination,  the  masses  follow  their  political  leaders.  The  cul- 


INTR  OD  UCTORY.  19 

mination  of  the  contest  over  this  question,  resulting  in  the  election 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency  by  a  party  openly  opposed 
to  slavery,  caused  its  friends  to  take  their  appeal  from  the  ballot 
box  to  the  sword ;  and  this  appeal  found  those  who  were  the 
friends  of  the  institution  from  political  party  considerations  scattered 
all  over  the  North  in  quite  formidable  numbers,  constituting  an 
enemy  in  the  rear  of  our  armies  that  gave  to  the  administration  of 
President  Lincoln  no  little  anxiety  and  embarrassment,  making  it 
necessary  for  him,  as  early  as  September,  1862,  to  proclaim  martial 
law  and  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  respect  to  all  persons 
in  the  United  States  who  were  found  to  be  actively  disloyal,  and 
engaged  in  efforts  to  aid  the  rebellion.  The  following  is  a  copy  of 
his  proclamation :  — 

GENERAL   ORDERS   NO.    141. 

WAR  DEPARTMENT, 
ADJUTANT  GENERAL'S  OFFICE, 

WASHINGTON,  Sept.  25,  1862. 

The  following  Proclamation  by  the  President  is  published  for  the  information  and 
government  of  the  Army  and  all  concerned : 
By  the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America. 
A  PROCLAMATION. 

Whereas  it  has  become  necessary  to  call  into  service  not  only  volunteers  but  also 
portions  of  the  militia  of  the  States  by  draft,  in  order  to  suppress  the  insurrection  exist 
ing  in  the  United  States,  and  disloyal  persons  are  not  adequately  restrained  by  the  ordi 
nary  processes  of  law  from  hindering  this  measure  and  from  giving  aid  and  comfort  in 
various  ways  to  the  insurrection :  Now,  therefore,  be  it  ordered :  First,  That  during 
the  existing  insurrection,  and  as  a  necessary  measure  for  suppressing  the  same,  all  rebels 
and  insurgents,  their  aiders  and  abettors,  within  the  United  States,  and  all  persons  dis 
couraging  volunteer  enlistments,  resisting  militia  drafts,  or  guilty  of  any  disloyal  prac 
tice  affording  aid  and  comfort  to  rebels  against  the  authority  of  the  United  States  shall 
be  subject  to  martial  law,  and  liable  to  trial  and  punishment  by  court-martial  or  military 
commission.  Second,  That  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  is  suspended  in  respect  to  all  per 
sons  arrested,  or  who  are  now,  or  hereafter  during  the  rebellion  shall  be,  imprisoned  in 
any  fort,  camp,  arsenal,  military  prison,  or  other  place  of  confinement,  by  any  military 
authority,  or  by  sentence  of  any  court-martial  or  military  commission.  In  witness  whereof 
I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  twenty-fourth  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the 
United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 
"  By  the  President, 

"WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 

"  By  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 

"  L.  THOMAS,  Adjutant  General." 

"  Official." 


20  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

This  disloyal  element  was  rendered  much  more  formidable  by 
the  fact  of  its  perfect  combination,  through  secret,  oath-bound 
organizations  under  the  names  of  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  and 
Order  of  American  Knights.  These  secret  orders  no  doubt  had 
their  origin  in  the  South,  preparatory  to  secession  and  war ;  but 
after  the  war  had  been  commenced  it  was  chiefly  in  the  North 
that  they  were  useful  to  the  rebel  cause,  and  it  was  through  these 
that  the  assassination  of  the  President-elect  was  to  have  been 
accomplished  at  Baltimore  when  on  his  way  to  the  Capital  in  1861, 
and  thus  his  inauguration  as  President  was  to  have  been  prevented. 
We  thus  see  the  desperate  character  of  the  political  leaders  of  the 
rebellion,  who  were  ready  to  frustrate  the  expressed  will  of  the 
people  by  resorting  to  assassination.  We  need  not  think  strange 
that  a  rebellion  which  was  ready  to  resort  to  such  means  in  its 
incipiency  should  finally  expire  under  the  weight  of  this  infamy. 

By  these  secret  organizations,  the  enemies  of  the  government, 
wherever  they  might  be,  possessed  the  means  of  a  secret  recog 
nition  amongst  their  members.  And  under  whatever  circumstances 
they  might  be  placed,  the  obligations  of  their  oath  afforded  them 
confidence  and  security.  They  constituted  a  brotherhood,  and  by 
their  secret  grips,  signs,  passwords,  etc.,  they  had  a  guarantee  of 
unity  of  sentiment  and  of  purpose,  and  of  faithfulness  to  each  other 
and  to  the  obligations  of  their  oath. 

These  organizations  were  regarded  as  allies  by  the  rebel  govern 
ment,  and  were  counted  on  as  a  valuable  factor  to  secure  the  suc 
cess  of  its  arms.  This  element  in  the  North  kept  itself  in  constant 
communication  with  the  rebel  government  and  the  rebel  armies, 
and  thus,  in  a  large  degree,  filled  the  place  of  spies  in  giving  inform 
ation.  To  furnish  facilities  for  communication  with  its  friends  in 
the  North,  as  also  for  various  other  purposes  in  aid  of  the  rebel 
cause,  the  Confederate  Government  sent  a  number  of  its  ablest 
civilians  to  Canada,  at  an  early  period  of  the  war,  as  its  secret 
agents,  who  established  their  headquarters  at  Montreal.  This  cabal 
consisted  of  the  following  persons  :  Jacob  Thompson,  who  had  been 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  under  Buchanan's  administration  ;  Clem 
ent  C.  Clay,  who  had  been  a  United  States  Senator  from  Alabama; 
Beverly  Tucker,  who  had  been  a  Circuit  Judge  in  Virginia  ;  George 


INTR  OD  UC  TORY.  21 

N.  Sanders,  William  C.  Cleary,  Prof.  Holcomb,  George  Harper, 
and  others.  Of  these,  Thompson,  Tucker,  and  Clay  seem  to  have 
held  semi-official  positions,  and  we  will  designate  them  as  Davis's 
Canada  Cabinet.  The  others  named,  as  also  others  unnamed  above, 
appear  to  have  acted  as  aids,  in  a  subordinate  capacity,  in  the  exe 
cution  of  their  plots.  They  all  claimed  to  be  acting  as  agents  of 
the  Rebel  Government  upon  their  oaths  on  the  trial  for  the  extra 
dition  of  the  St.  Alban's  raiders. 

The  proclamation  of  martial  law  and  suspension  of  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  in  September,  1862,  had  the  effect  of  restraining  the 
open,  active  efforts  of  these  secret  disloyal  organizations  to  cripple 
the  resources  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  command  for  suppressing  the  rebel 
lion,  inasmuch  as  any  such  efforts  were  met  by  arrest,  military  trial, 
and  imprisonment ;  yet,  inasmuch  as  they  created  a  necessity  for  a 
military  police  at  all  important  points  in  the  North,  they  felt  that 
they  were  still  rendering  valuable  service  to  the  rebellion  by  thus 
weakening  the  force  at  the  front ;  and  whilst  it  was  necessary  to 
conduct  their  operations  with  much  more  secrecy,  their  organiza 
tions  were  not  disbanded.  They  went  on  to  effect  a  complete  mili 
tary  organization,  thoroughly  officered  and  drilled,  and  in  many 
cases  armed,  holding  themselves  ready  to  take  the  field  in  any  emer 
gency  that  might  arise  that  would  justify  so  bold  a  measure.  The 
Canada  Cabinet  watched  over  these  organizations  with  great  inter 
est,  and  directed  their  operations,  and  by  man}'  schemes  sought  to 
bring  about  an  emergency  that  would  enable  them  to  bring  this  army, 
which  they  had  hidden  away  in  secrecy,  into  the  field  of  active  oper 
ations  for  the  success  of  their  cause.  The  officers  of  these  secret 
military  organizations  were  chosen  from  the  local  political  leaders  in 
the  different  localities  where  they  existed,  and  kept  themselves  in 
communication  with  the  Canada  Cabinet,  and  through  this  medium 
the  Confederate  Government  wras  kept  informed  of  their  strength, 
organization,  plans,  and  purposes.  So  bold  and  active  did  they 
become,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  military  police  for  their  sup 
pression,  that  the  government  finally  found  it  necessary,  through 
its  secret  service  department,  to  possess  itself  of  a  thorough  knowl 
edge  of  these  organizations,  and  in  this  way  was  enabled  to  cap 
ture  the  arms  and  munitions  of  war  which  had  been  secured  and 


22  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

were  hidden  away  in  secrecy  by  them,  and  also  to  arrest  the  lead 
ing  officers  of  these  organizations  in  several  states.  Whilst  by 
these  means  these  treasonable  combinations  were  seriously  crip 
pled,  they  were  unchanged  in  animus  and  still  struggled  to  main 
tain  their  existence.  They  kept  themselves  in  communication  with 
the  Canada  conspirators,  and  ready  to  co-operate  with  them  for 
the  success  of  their  schemes  should  the  conditions  become  suffi 
ciently  promising  to  justify  them  in  declaring  themselves  openly. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1864  that  Jacob  Thompson,  according 
to  the  testimony  before  the  Commission,  declared  that  he  had  his 
friends  all  over  the  Northern  States,  who  were  willing  to  go  to  any 
length  in  order  to  serve  the  cause  of  the  South.  Jefferson  Davis's 
Canada  Cabinet  kept  up  a  constant  correspondence  with  their 
chief,  through  secret  agents  who  travelled  directly  through  the 
states,  and  even  through  the  city  of  Washington. 

So  potent  was  the  aid  of  secret  signs,  grips,  pass-words,  etc.,  as 
a  means  of  recognition,  and  so  universally  were  the  members  of 
these  secret  orders  diffused  over  the  country,  that  they  could  go 
anywhere.  Should  one  agent  find  it  necessary  to  stop  his  task 
for  fear  of  detection,  another  would  take  it  up ;  and  where  men 
could  not  go,  women  went,  to  carry  communications.  The  Canada 
Cabinet  was  well  supplied  with  money  by  the  government  at 
Richmond,  and  in  this  department  of  the  service  Jacob  Thomp 
son  seems  to  have  been  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  kept  his 
deposits  largely  in  the  Ontario  Bank  of  Montreal,  and  his  credits 
there  arose  from  Southern  bills  of  exchange  on  London.  The 
object  of  the  writer  in  this  introductory  chapter  has  been  to  place 
clearly  before  his  readers  the  formidable  character  of  the  conspi 
racy,  which,  with  the  President  of  the  Confederacy  at  its  head,  and 
organized  by  his  Canada  Cabinet,  was  intended  to  throw  the  loyal 
North  into  a  state  of  chaotic  confusion  and  bring  to  the  aid  of 
their  sinking  cause  the  disloyal  element  all  over  the  North,  by  a 
series  of  assassinations  which  would  leave  the  nation  without  a  civil 
and  military  head  and  without  any  constitutional  way  of  electing 
another  President,  and  at  the  same  time  would  deprive  the  armies 
of  the  United  States  of  a  lawful  commander.  This  was  the  last 
card  of  the  political  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  the  last  desperate 


INTR  OD  UCTOR  Y.  23 

resort  to  retrieve  a  cause  that  had  been  manifestly  lost  in  open  war 
fare.  It  may  seem  like  temerity  in  the  writer  to  make  such  a 
charge  involving  a  total  disregard  of  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare, 
and  such  utter  moral  depravity  on  the  part  of  these  conspirators, 
and  to  claim  for  their  wicked  project  the  approval  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  but  the  evidence  in  the  possession  of  the  government  and 
adduced  before  the  Commission,  it  will  be  seen,  fully  justified  the 
government  in  making  this  charge.  The  persons  brought  before 
the  Commission,  though  in  full  sympathy  in  sentiment  with  their 
employers,  were  merely  the  tools  and  hired  assassins  of  the  Canada 
Cabinet,  acting  under  the  advice  and  sanction  of  their  chief.  I 
shall  now  proceed  to  bring  before  my  readers  the  denouement  of 
their  plot,  and,  from  the  evidence  given  before  the  Commission, 
show  that  the  origin,  scope  and  purpose  of  the  conspiracy  have 
been  truly  indicated  above. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  EXECUTION  OF  THE  PLOT. 

THE  evidence  which  will  be  hereafter  referred  to  shows  that 
John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt  had,  as  early  as  the 
latter  part  of  October,  or  early  in  November,  1864,  entered  into  a 
contract  with  Davis's  Canada  Cabinet  to  accomplish  the  assassi 
nations  they  had  planned,  and  that  they  immediately  entered  upon 
their  work  of  preparation.  It  would  seem  from  the  evidence,  that 
at  that  time  the  purpose  was  to  execute  their  designs  at  a  much 
earlier  date  than  they  did ;  and  that  this  delay  was  occasioned  by 
the  Canada  conspirators. 

Surratt  and  Booth,  however,  were  busied  from  that  time  on  in 
making  their  preparations.  The  first  step  was  to  enlist  in  the  con 
spiracy  a  sufficient  number  of  competent  and  reliable  assistants,  to 
each  one  of  whom  was  assigned  the  part  he  was  to  take  in  it,  and 
to  train,  equip,  and  prepare  him  for  the  part  assigned  him.  The 
assassination  of  President  Lincoln  had  fallen  to  Payne  by  lot ;  and 
to  him  was  entrusted  the  task  of  making  all  needed  preparations. 
.Payne  had  visited  Canada  during  the  fall  of  1864,  and  probably 
there  made  the  acquaintance  of  Booth.  To  a  man  of  Booth's  sagac 
ity,  a  mere  glance  at  Payne  would  be  sufficient  to  impress  him 
with  the  idea  that  he  was  one  of  the  helpers  he  wanted ;  and  as  we 
find  him  as  early  as  February,  1865,  transplanted  to  Washington 
City  by  Booth  and  Surratt,  and  from  that  time  on  associating  with 
them  very  intimately  but  very  secretly,  and  without  employment, 
or  visible  means,  passing  back  and  forth  between  Washington  and 
Baltimore,  and  finally  provided  with  quarters  in  Washington  by 
Surratt,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  was  early  enlisted  in  the 
conspiracy,  and  supported  by  the  Canada  Cabinet  through  their 
agents  in  Washington  —  Booth  and  Surratt.  The  author  is  led  to 
24 


J.  WFLKES  BOOTH. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   EXECUTION   OF   THE  PLOT,  2$ 

conclude  from  studying  the  evidence  that  Booth  and  Surratt  were 
acting  under  a  considerable  latitude  of  provisional  instructions, 
and  that  to  them  was  entrusted  the  selection  of  the  time  and  place 
for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purpose.  There  were  a  number 
of  persons  in  Canada,  members  of  the  conspiracy,  who  were  ex 
pected  to  take  an  active  part  in  its  execution ;  and  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  the  original  plan  contemplated  the  accomplishment 
of  these  assassinations  as  opportunities  could  be  found  or  made, 
and  that  for  each  one  a  man  had  been  assigned. 

John  VVilkes  Booth  and  John  Harrison  Surratt  were  the  leaders 
of  the  conspiracy  in  Washington,  they  having  proposed  to  their 
co-conspirators  in  Canada  to  accomplish  for  them  the  assassina 
tions  they  had  planned. 

They  were  stimulated  by  their  intense  hostility  to  the  admin 
istration  of  President  Lincoln  and  desire  for  the  establishment  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy,  and  also  by  the  delusive  idea  of  winning 
enduring  fame  and  the  lasting  gratitude  of  their  countrymen  of  the 
South  for  being  thus  the  instruments  of  retrieving  the  fortunes  of 
their  dying  cause.  But  in  addition  to  these  considerations,  they 
had  large  promises  of  pecuniary  reward.  They  were,  in  fact,  the 
hired  assassins  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  Canada  Cabinet. 

These  two  men  had  been  engaged  for  months  in  making  their 
preparations  for  the  assassination  of  the  President,  Vice-President, 
Secretary  Seward,  and  General  Grant.  They  visited  and  con 
ferred  with  the  Canada  conspirators  from  time  to  time  during  the 
summer  and  fall  of  1864,  and  early  winter  of  1865.  They  traversed 
the  counties  of  Prince  George,  Charles,  and  St.  Mary's,  Maryland, 
lying  along  the  north  side  of  the  Potomac  below  Washington,  to 
prepare  the  way  for  escape  by  securing  confederates  along  the 
contemplated  route  who  would  assist  in  facilitating  their  flight  by 
aiding  them  in  their  progress,  or  by  concealing  them  if  necessary. 
Booth  had  spent  some  time  in  this  work  during  the  fall  and  early 
winter,  making  himself  familiar  with  the  geography  of  the  coun 
try,  roads,  etc.,  under  the  pretence  that  he  desired  to  purchase 
lands  in  Maryland.  He  found  in  Charles  County  Dr.  S.  A. 
Mudd,  who  sympathized  with  his  plans,  and  entered  into  them 
at  least  so  far  as  to  pledge  him  any  assistance  he  could  give  him 


26  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

in  making  his  escape.  Mudd  also  visited  Booth  two  or  three 
times  in  Washington  during  the  winter,  introducing  him  on  the 
occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  John  H.  Surratt ;  and  in  the  course  of 
these  visits  he  was  always  found  in  company  with  Booth  and 
others  of  the  conspirators  who  were  to  take  an  active  part  in  its 
accomplishment,  and  was  no  doubt  kept  well  informed  of  the 
progress  of  their  preparations,  and  of  the  time  when  it  would  be 
attempted  after  that  had  been  determined  upon.  Surratt  also 
spent  much  time  during  the  winter  in  this  part  of  Maryland, 
in  preparation  for  the  work.  Being  at  home  there,  he  could 
render  Booth  valuable  assistance  by  procuring  friends  who  would 
aid  him  in  his  flight,  and  in  getting  him  across  the  Potomac  at 
the  selected  point.  As  this  was  on  the  line  of  a  regular  under 
ground  mail  route  between  Washington  and  Richmond,  with  which 
Surratt  was  familiar,  he,  of  course,  had  no  difficulty  in  making 
satisfactory  arrangements,  the  great  mass  of  the  population  in  all 
of  these  counties  being  intensely  disloyal. 

They  had  selected  and  arranged  with  Payne,  Atzerodt,  O'Laugh- 
lin,  Arnold,  Herold,  Spangler,  and  numerous  other  parties  who 
were  never  made  known,  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  work  of 
assassination,  or  to  aid  them  in  their  escape.  Booth  and  Surratt 
had  provided  horses  for  the  occasion,  and,  with  Atzerodt  and 
Herold,  were  known  to  a  number  of  liverymen  of  whom  they  were 
liberal  and  frequent  patrons. 

Surratt  provided  quarters  for  Payne  at  the  Herndon  House, 
representing  him  to  be  a  delicate  gentleman,  and  stipulating  that 
his  meals  should  be  served  to  him  in  his  room.  Atzerodt,  who 
was  to  have  assassinated  the  Vice-President,  had  taken  a  room  at 
the  Pennsylvania  House.  Booth,  being  an  actor,  and  familiar  with 
the  routine  of  the  play  and  the  work  of  the  assistants  on  the  stage, 
having  selected  Ford's  Theatre  as  the  place  for  the  accomplishment 
of  his  purpose,  proceeded  to  make  himself  at  home  amongst  the 
habitues  of  that  establishment.  He  was  a  very  handsome  man, 
stylish  in  his  dress,  dissolute  in  his  habits,  a  constant  and  free 
drinker,  generous  in  the  expenditure  of  his  money  on  his  vices  of 
smoking  and  drinking,  and  of  great  personal  magnetism.  He  soon 
ingratiated  himself  with  the  employees  of  the  theatre,  and  became  a 
general  favorite. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   EXECUTION   OF   THE  PLOT.  2J 

It  was  necessary  that  he  should  have  a  co-conspirator  at  the 
theatre  to  assist  him  in  making  his  escape.  He  had  labored  hard 
with  an  actor  in  New  York  by  the  name  of  Chester,  with  whom  he 
was  acquainted,  to  engage  him  in  the  conspiracy,  that  he  might 
station  him  at  the  door  of  his  exit,  to  see  that  his  way  should  be 
clear  and  the  door  open  at  the  critical  moment,  for  which  service 
he  offered  to  pay  him  three  thousand  dollars ;  but  Chester,  after 
several  interviews  and  much  importunity,  absolutely  declined,  and 
begged  Booth  never  to  mention  the  matter  to  him  again.  Failing 
to  secure  Chester,  he  turned  his  attention  to  Edward  Spangler,  an 
employee  at  the  theatre.  Spangler  was  a  man  of  dissipated  habits, 
low  moral  tone,  and  little  intellectual  culture,  and  being  politically 
in  sympathy  with  Booth,  he  was  easily  led  by  him  into  the  conspir 
acy.  Booth  had  had  a  shed  fitted  up  as  a  stable  in  an  alley  back 
of  the  theatre,  and  had  kept  his  horse  in  it  occasionally  for  some 
time  previous,  that  he  might  have  it  convenient  when  the  supreme 
moment  should  have  arrived,  without  exciting  suspicion.  To 
reach  the  private  box  fitted  up  on  the  occasion  for  the  occupancy 
of  the  President  and  General  Grant,  with  their  wives,  it  was  neces 
sary  to  pass  through  two  doors.  The  first  led  into  a  passage  behind 
the  box,  the  second  from  this  passage  into  the  box.  To  prevent 
any  one  from  following  him  into  the  passage  and  hindering  the 
accomplishment  of  his  purpose,  Booth  had  cut,  himself,  or  more 
likely  had  had  Spangler,  who  was  a  kind  of  rough  carpenter,  cut 
a  mortise  in  the  plastering  of  the  passage  wall,  in  such  a  position 
with  reference  to  the  door  that  the  end  of  a  wooden  bar,  three  and 
a  half  feet  long,  which  had  been  prepared  for  that  purpose,  could 
be  inserted  in  the  mortise,  and  the  other  end  placed  against  the 
panel  of  the  door  so  that  it  could  not  be  opened  from  the  outside. 

That  ingress  to  this  passage  might  not  be  prevented  by  the 
bolting  of  the  door  by  the  President  and  his  party  after  entering, 
the  screws  of  the  fastenings  had  been  drawn,  so  that  it  could  be 
easily  pushed  open.  A  hole  had  been  bored  through  the  door  to 
the  box,  opposite  where  the  President's  chair  was  placed,  with  a 
small  bit,  and  reamed  out  with  a  knife,  so  that  Booth  could,  after 
gaining  the  passage  and  barring  the  door  behind  him,  peep  through 
this  hole  and  assure  himself  of  the  exact  position  of  his  intended 


28  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

victim.  The  manner  in  which  all  of  these  arrangements  had  been 
made,  the  mortise  in  the  plastered  wall,  the  bar  of  wood  fitted  to 
the  mortise,  and  in  length  having  been  exactly  prepared  to  fit 
against  the  panel  of  the  door  and  act  as  a  brace,  show  that  all 
these  preparations  had  been  made  with  the  greatest  forethought 
and  care. 

About  three  weeks  previous  to  the  assassination,  John  H.  Sur- 
ratt,  Herold,  and  Atzerodt  brought  to  the  tavern  at  Surrattsville, 
in  Maryland,  about  ten  miles  below  Washington  City,  owned  by 
Mrs.  Surratt,  and  at  the  time  occupied  by  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Lloyd,  two  carbines,  with  ammunition,  a  monkey-wrench,  and  a 
piece  of  rope.  Surratt  asked  Lloyd  to  take  charge  of  these  things 
and  keep  them  secreted,  saying  they  would  be  called  for  before  a 
great  while,  at  the  same  time  showing  him  a  suitable  place  about 
the  house  in  which  to  hide  them.  The  Surratt  family  had  lived 
in  this  house  and  kept  a  country  tavern  until  within  a  few  months 
previous,  when  they  had  removed  to  Washington,  renting  their 
tavern  to  Lloyd,  so  that  Surratt  was  much  more  familiar  with  the 
house  than  Lloyd.  These  things,  as  we  shall  see,  were  placed 
there  for  the  use  of  Booth  and  his  companion  in  their  flight  after 
the  assassination.  As  a  precautionary  measure,  Booth,  on  the 
Tuesday  before  the  assassination,  sought  an  interview  with  Mrs. 
Surratt,  who  shortly  after  that  interview  discovered  that  she  had 
some  private  business  at  Surrattsville  that  had  to  be  attended  to 
that  day,  and  so  she  asked  Mr.  Wiechmann,  a  young  man  who  had 
been  a  boarder  at  her  house  for  several  months,  to  drive  her  down, 
saying  that  she  wanted  to  go  and  see  a  Mr.  Nothey  who  owed 
her  some  money.  She  then  sent  Wiechmann  to  Booth,  to  get  his 
horse  and  buggy  for  the  drive.  Booth  told  Wiechmann  that  he 
had  sold  his  horse  and  buggy,  but  gave  him  ten  dollars  with  which 
to  procure  one.  Meeting  Lloyd  on  the  way  down,  driving  up  to 
Washington,  they  stopped;  Lloyd  got  out  of  his  buggy  and  came 
to  the  side  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  buggy,  on  which  she  was  sitting,  when 
Mrs.  Surratt  told  Lloyd,  as  he  afterwards  testified,  in  a  low  voice, 
so  that  Wiechmann  did  not  hear  what  she  said,  to  have  those 
shooting  irons  ready,  or  handy,  as  they  would  be  called  for  be 
fore  long.  On  the  day  of  the  assassination  Booth  again  had  a 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   EXECUTION   OF   THE   PLOT.  29 

private  interview  with  Mrs.  Surratt,  after  which  she  again  asked 
Wiechmann  to  drive  her  down  to  Surrattsville,  claiming  the  same 
errand  as  before.  On  this  occasion  she  sought  an  opportunity  for 
a  private  interview  with  Lloyd,  when  she  told  him  to  have  the 
carbines  handy,  as  they  would  be  called  for  that  night,  at  the 
same  time  handing  him  a  field-glass,  which  Booth  had  given  to 
her,  and  telling  him  to  have  two  bottles  of  whiskey  ready. 

John  H.  Surratt  left  Washington  for  Richmond  on  the  25th  of 
March  and  returned  to  Washington  on  the  3d  of  April,  leaving  for 
Montreal  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day.  He  showed  to  Wiechmann 
—  an  old  college  friend  and,  at  this  time,  a  boarder  in  his  mother's 
house  —  nine  or  eleven  twenty-dollar  gold  pieces,  and  sixty  dollars 
in  greenbacks,  on  his  return  from  Richmond.  Surratt,  in  his  Rock- 
ville  lecture,  admits  that  he  received  two  hundred  dollars  in  gold 
from  Benjamin  to  pay  expenses  and  remunerate  for  services. 
Surratt  left  Washington  for  Canada  on  the  evening  of  the  3d 
of  April,  and  we  find  him,  by  the  evidence,  in  Montreal  on  the 
6th,  where  he  delivered  to  Thompson  a  cipher  dispatch  from 
Jefferson  Davis,  and  a  letter  from  Mr.  Benjamin,  of  Davis's 
Richmond  Cabinet.  After  reading  these  documents,  Thompson, 
laying  his  hand  on  them,  said,  ''This  makes  the  thing  all  right." 
The  sanction  of  the  rebel  president  to  his  arrangements  with  the 
assassins  had  been  obtained,  and  authority  also  for  the  expendi 
ture  of  funds  to  fulfil  the  contract.  The  Canada  conspirators  who 
were  to  take  a  part  prepared  at  once,  and  started  for  the  States, 
boasting  to  their  friends  that  they  would  hear  of  the  death  of  Old 
Abe  and  others  before  ten  days.  This  was  on  the  8th  of  April, 
and  nothing  now  remained  but  to  find,  and  use,  an  opportunity; 
and  Booth  selected  the  appearance  of  the  President  at  the  theatre 
as  affording  the  opportunity  he  sought,  and  proceeded  to  make 
all  his  arrangements  accordingly. 

All  things  were  now  ready.  Booth  had  selected  the  route  for 
his  escape  and  had  provided  to  be  furnished  with  a  field-glass,  two 
carbines,  and  two  bottles  of  whiskey  at  Surrattsville,  having  sent 
a  notice  to  Lloyd  to  have  them  ready,  as  they  would  be  called  for 
that  night.  He  had  provided  horses  from  a  livery-stable  for  him 
self  and  Herold,  who  was  to  accompany  him.  He  had  also  pro- 


30  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

vided  a  horse  for  Payne,  whose  part  was  to  murder  Secretary 
Seward.  He  had  assembled  his  assistants  in  Washington,  to  one  of 
whom,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  he  had  assigned  the  task  of  the  assas 
sination  of  General  Grant;  and  having  made  these  preparations, 
he  spent  the  day  and  afternoon  of  the  I4th  of  April  looking  after  the 
matter  generally,  and  keeping  up  his  courage,  or  rather  reckless 
ness,  with  frequent  potations  of  whiskey.  To  Payne  he  had  given 
a  one-eyed  bay  horse,  which  he  had  purchased  of  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Gardner,  a  neighbor  of  Dr.  Samuel  Mudd,  in  Charles 
County,  Maryland.  Mudd  accompanied  him,  and  introduced  him 
to  Gardner  as  a  man  who  was  desirous  of  purchasing  land  in  that 
part  of  Maryland,  and  who  wished  a  good  driving  horse  that  he 
could  use  for  a  short  time.  During  the  afternoon  of  the  I4th, 
Booth,  Herold,  and  Atzerodt  hired  horses  from  liverymen,  and 
were  to  be  seen  riding  here  and  there  about  the  streets  of  Wash 
ington,  frequently  stopping  at  saloons  to  refresh  themselves  with 
that  which  obtunds  all  moral  sensibility  and  makes  men  reckless 
in  wickedness.  Booth  was  acting  the  part  of  a  general  mustering 
his  forces  for  the  conflict,  part  of  which  he  thus  displayed  openly, 
but  keeping  another  part  in  concealment.  He  kept  himself  in 
active  communication  with  all,  and  delivered  his  orders  and 
instructions.  Feeling  the  full  force  of  the  responsibility  of  his 
engagment,  and  earnestly  intent  on  its  complete  and  thorough 
accomplishment,  he  attended  in  person  to  every  detail  to  make 
failure,  if  possible,  an  impossibility. 

It  would  seem  that  a  previous  attempt  had  been  made  to  assassi 
nate  the  President,  which  had  resulted  in  a  failure.  It  was  known 
that  President  Lincoln  was  in  the  habit  of  riding  out  to  the  Soldiers' 
Home  of  evenings,  passing  through  a  lonely  suburb  of  the  city  un 
guarded.  Some  time  in  March,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  John  H.  Surratt, 
Payne,  Atzerodt,  Herold,  and  two  others,  left  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Surratt  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  on  horseback,  armed 
with  revolvers  and  bowie-knives,  and  returned  about  six  o'clock 
under  the  greatest  possible  excitement  of  rage  and  disappoint 
ment.  All  the  evidence  went  to  show  that  this  expedition  was 
regarded  by  them  as  one  of  the  greatest  importance,  involving  the 
necessity  of  leaving  the  city,  perhaps  for  good,  as  their  return  in 


PREPARATIONS  FOR   EXECUTION   OF   THE   PLOT.  31 

the  evening  was  as  much  of  a  surprise  to  their  friends  as  it  was 
an  occasion  of  dissatisfaction  to  themselves.  I  think  there  can 
hardly  be  a  doubt  that  they  expected  to  intercept  the  President 
on  his  way  to  the  Home,  and  were  lying  in  wait  for  him  with  the 
purpose  of  there  assassinating  him,  and  then  making  their  escape. 
The  President,  however,  upon  the  earnest  advice  of  his  cabinet, 
had  yielded  the  point  of  riding  unprotected  and  alone,  and  had 
accepted  the  protection  of  an  escort  of  cavalry  on  these  rides. 
Booth  and  his  party  finding  him  thus  guarded  had  been  compelled 
to  abandon  the  idea  of  thus  finding  an  opportunity  to  assassinate 
him,  and  so  had  to  prepare  a  new  plan  of  operations.  There  was 
a  rumor,  which  found  its  way  into  the  papers  about  this  time,  that 
there  was  a  plot  to  capture  the  President  and  carry  him  a  prisoner 
to  Richmond  ;  but  however  much  Booth's  pride  and  vanity  might 
have  impelled  him  to  achieve  the  notoriety  that  would  have  at 
tended  the  accomplishment  of  such  a  feat,  the  difficulties  and 
dangers  attending  its  accomplishment  must  have  been  too  obvious 
to  a  man  of  Booth's  sagacity,  and  its  success  involved  in  too  much 
uncertainty,  to  have  justified  him  in  making  such  an  attempt. 

In  view  of  all  the  facts,  I  conclude  that  the  real  purpose  of 
Booth  and  his  party  on  the  occasion  referred  to  was  to  murder 
the  President,  and  trust  to  flight  for  concealment  and  safety.  But 
now  Booth  was  fully  possessed  with  the  idea  of  the  practicabil 
ity  of  his  present  plan,  and  was  determined  to  know  no  such 
word  as  fail ;  and  that  it  was  entirely  possible  that,  but  for  a  Pro 
vidential  interference,  he  might  have  made  good  his  escape  after 
murdering  the  President,  we  shall  hereafter  see. 
"President  Lincoln  had  been  convinced  by  the  most  undoubted 
proofs  that  a  plan  for  his  assassination  at  Baltimore  whilst  on  his 
way  to  Washington,  in  1861,  to  assume  the  responsibilities  of  the 
office  to  which  he  had  been  called  by  the  choice  of  the  people, 
had  been  arranged  and  prepared  for  by  his  enemies,  and  had  only 
been  prevented  of  its  execution  by  the  strategic  movement  planned 
by  his  friends,  by  which  he  passed  through  that  city  during  the 
night  previous  to  the  morning  on  which  he  was  expected. 

"  From  the  very  beginning  of  his  Presidency  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
been    constantly  subject  to  the   threats  of    his   enemies    and   the 


32  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

warnings  of  his  hiends.  The  threats  came  in  every  form :  his 
mail  was  infested  with  brutal  and  vulgar  menace,  mostly  anony 
mous,  the  proper  expression  of  vile  and  cowardly  minds. 

"  The  warnings  were  not  less  numerous;  the  vaporings  of  vil 
lage  bullies,  the  extravagancies  of  excited  secessionist  politicians, 
even  the  drolling  of  practical  jokers,  were  faithfully  reported  to 
him  by  zealous  or  nervous  friends.  Most  of  these  communica 
tions  received  no  notice.  In  cases  where  there  seemed  a  ground 
for  inquiry  it  was  made,  as  carefully  as  possible,  by  the  President's 
private  secretary  and  by  the  War  Department,  but  always  without 
substantial  results. 

"  Warnings  that  appeared  to  be  most  definite,  when  they  came 
to  be  examined  proved  too  vague  and  confused  for  further  atten 
tion.  The  President  was  too  intelligent  not  to  know  he  was  in 
some  danger.  Madmen  frequently  made  their  way  to  the  very 
door  of  the  executive  offices,  and  sometimes  into  Mr.  Lincoln's 
presence. 

"  He  had  himself  so  sane  a  mind,  and  a  heart  so  kindly  even  to 
his  enemies,  that  it  was  hard  for  him  to  believe  in  a  political  hatred 
so  deadly  as  to  lead  to  murder.  He  would  sometimes  laughingly 
say,  '  Our  friends  on  the  other  side  would  make  nothing  by  ex 
changing  me  for  Hamlin,'  the  Vice-President  having  the  reputation 
of  more  radical  views  than  his  chief.  He  knew,  indeed,  that  incite 
ments  to  murder  him  were  not  uncommon  in  the  South.  An  adver 
tisement  had  appeared  in  a  paper  of  Selma,  Alabama,  in  December,. 
1 864,  opening  a  subscription  for  funds  to  affect  the  assassination 
of  Lincoln,  Seward,  and  Johnson  before  the  inauguration." 
"  In  view  of  all  this  danger  he  would  say  "  that  he  could  not  pos 
sibly  guard  against  it  unless  he  were  to  shut  himself  up  in  an  iron 
box,  in  which  condition  he  could  scarcely  perform  the  duties  of  a 
President.  By  the  hand  of  a  murderer  he  could  only  die  once ; 
to  go  continually  in  fear  would  be  to  die  over  and  over." 

To  his  faithful  and  devoted  friend,  Father  Chiniquy,  who  on 
several  occasions  warned  him  of  his  danger,  and  of  the  ultimate 
source  of  its  inspiration,  he  said,  "  I  see  no  other  way  than  to  be 
always  prepared  to  die.  I  know  my  danger ;  but  man  must  not 

1   "  Life  of  Lincoln,"  by  Nicolay  and  Hay,  Century  Magazine,  pp.  431-32. 


PREPARATIONS   FOR   EXECUTION   OF    THE   PLOT.  33 

care  how  and  where  he  dies,  provided  he  dies  at  the  post  of  honor 
and  duty." 

We  have  come  to  the  point  now  where  we  find,  on  the  part  of 
his  murderers,  all  things  ready  for  his  taking  off ;  and  their  intended 
victim  prepared  in  mind  for  his  fate,  and  ready  to  "  die  at  the  post 
of  honor  and  duty."  What  a  fearful,  and  at  the  same  time,  sublime 
spectacle  !  The  powers  of  light  and  the  powers  of  darkness  were 
contending,  as  ever,  for  the  supremacy.  Satan,  the  usurper,  claims; 
this  world  for  his  kingdom.  He  has  seduced  and  enslaved  the 
human  race,  and,  by  every  false  and  cunning  device,  is  always  re 
sisting  every  movement  that  looks  to  the  disenthralment  of  man 
kind,  and  bringing  the  world  back  to  its  allegiance  to  God,  its 
rightful  sovereign.  How  sublime  was  the  faith  of  President 
Lincoln  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  right !  How  sincerely  and 
believingly  could  he  have  sung, 

"  Thy  saints  in  all  this  glorious  war, 

Shall  conquer  though  they  die; 
They  see  the  triumph  from  afar, 
By  faith  they  bring  it  nigh." 


CHAPTER    III. 

ASSASSINATION   OF  THE   PRESIDENT  AND   ATTEMPTED   ASSASSINA 
TION    OF    SECRETARY    SEWARD. 

ON  the  morning  of  the  I4th  of  April,  1865,  the  President's 
messenger  went  to  Ford's  Theatre  in  Washington  City  and  en 
gaged  a  private  box  for  the  President  and  General  Grant,  with 
their  wives,  to,  witness  the  play  of  "  Our  American  Cousin,"  which 
was  to  be  rendered  there  that  night.  The  heavy  burden  of  re 
sponsibility,  the  weight  of  cares  and  anxieties  which  had  for  four 
long  years  rested  on  the  head  of  President  Lincoln  in  his  official 
position  of  President  of  the  United  States  and  Commander-in-Chief 
of  its  army  and  navy,  employed  during  all  that  time  in  suppressing 
a  gigantic  rebellion  of  the  slave-holding  States  of  the  South  against 
the  constitutional  and  lawful  authority  of  the  government,  and 
which  had  followed  him  into  his  second  term  of  office,  upon 
which  he  had  just  entered,  had  been  partially  lifted  by  the  sig 
nal  success  of  the  Union  arms  at  Appomattox,  and  the  surrender 
of  Lee's  army.  General  Grant,  who  had  just  accepted  the  uncon 
ditional  surrender  of  that  army,  and  finished  the  work  of  dismiss 
ing  to  their  homes  the  officers  and  men  who  had  composed  it 
(and  who  for  four  long  years  had  fought  with  such  magnificent 
bravery,  and  manifested  such  earnestness  and  determinedness  of 
purpose  in  a  cause  which,  though  bad,  was  no  doubt  esteemed  by 
them  to  be  just),  under  no  other  condition  than  that  they  should 
return  to  their  homes  and  the  pursuits  of  peaceful  life,  and  desist 
from  all  further  acts  of  hostility  against  the  government  they  had 
sought,  but  failed,  to  overthrow,  had  gone  to  Washington  to 
^talk  over  the  situation  with  the  President  and  Secretary  of  War, 
and  to  decide  on  future  operations  for  the  speedy  establishment 
of  peace.  With  the  surrender  of  Lee's  army,  and  the  successful 
34 


ASSASSINATION  OF   THE  PRESIDENT.  35 

march  of  Sherman  from  Atlanta  to  the  sea,  and  his  almost  un- 
resisted  progress  up  the  coast  toward  the  Nation's  Capital,  it  was 
obvious  that  the  rebellion  had  collapsed,  and  that  the  return  of 
peace  was  just  at  hand.  All  loyal  hearts  throughout  the  land 
throbbed  with  joy,  and  praise  and  thanksgiving  ascended  to  Him 
who  had  stamped  the  righteousness  of  the  union  cause  with  the 
signet  of  His  approbation,  in  thus  giving  us  the  victory  after  a  long 
and  bloody  contest.  The  years  of  sacrifice,  toil,  suffering  and 
danger  were  almost  forgotten  in  the  gladness  of  that  hour ;  and 
the  war-scarred  veterans  in  the  field,  and  their  friends  at  home, 
were  rejoicing  at  the  prospect  of  a  speedy  re-union,  under  skies  of 
peace.  It  was  an  hour  big  with  the  memories  of  the  past  and 
hopes  of  the  future.  When  we  think  of  what  President  Lincoln 
had  endured  through  all  these  years  of  the  war ;  of  his  unfalter 
ing  purpose  to  discharge  all  the  duties  of  his  official  oath,  by  pro 
tecting,  defending  and  preserving  the  constitution  of  his  country ; 
of  the  formidable  difficulties  that  had  to  be  met  and  overcome  — 
difficulties  thrown  across  his  pathway  often  by  friends,  always  by 
foes ;  when  we  remember  his  largeness  of  soul,  his  unbounded 
love  of,  and  sympathy  with,  mankind  ;  his  all  controlling  love  of 
his  country  and  her  institutions  of  freedom ;  his  patient  tolera 
tion  of  opposing  views  of  martial  and  of  political  policy ;  his  self- 
poise,  and  almost  infallible  appreciation  of  the  situation  and  its 
demands,  in  whatever  circumstances  he  might  be  placed  ;  his  kind 
ness  of  nature  and  goodness  of  heart,  we  can  well  conceive  what 
must  have  been  his  fullness  of  joy  on  this  the  last  day  of  his 
sojourn  on  earth.  God,  in  his  providence,  led  him  to  the  opening 
of  a  vista  through  which  his  patriotic  and  philanthropic  soul  could 
swell  with  delightful  anticipations  of  the  greatness,  the  glory,  and  the 
happiness  that  should  accrue  to  mankind  through  his  faithfulness 
to  the  obligations  of  his  official  oath,  by  which  he  had  vindicated 
his  authority,  and  brought  to  a  right  solution  the  great  moral  ques 
tion  underlying  the  contest,  and  thus  had  made  our  beloved  land 
a  land  of  freedom  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name.  He  saw  a  new  and 
glorious  era  about  to  dawn  on  his  country.  Like  Moses,  however, 
he  was  only  permitted,  in  vision,  to  look  over  into  the  promised 
land  —  the  great  future  of  his  beloved  country. 


36  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

It  is  consoling  to  thus  know  that  to  the  great  Lincoln  his  last 
day  on  earth  was  the  happiest,  and  at  the  same  time,  the  meekest 
day  of  his  life.  His  biographers,  Nicolay  and  Hay,  who  were 
able  to  write  from  personal  association  with,  and  observation  of, 
this  great  man,  inform  us  that  on  this  day  his  soul  was  filled  with 
the  kindliest  feelings  toward  his  enemies,  and  in  his  last  conference 
with  his  cabinet  his  policy  of  dealing  with  them  was  shadowed 
forth  as  free  from  feelings  of  revenge  or  desire  for  the  punishment 
of  any.  He  desired  that  no  man  should  lose  his  life  for  the  part 
he  had  taken  in  the  rebellion.  He  held  "  malice  toward  none," 
and  was  filled  with  "  charity  for  all."  His  passage  from  time  to 
eternity,  though  brought  about  by  the  bullet  of  an  assassin,  was 
a  passage  through  a  triumphal  arch,  whose  farther  portal  was  the 
gate  of  heaven. 

The  presence  of  General  Grant  was  known  to  the  city,  and  it 
was  noised  abroad  that  both  he  and  President  Lincoln  would 
honor  the  theatre  with  their  presence  on  that  evening.  The 
public  knowledge  of  this  fact  was  calculated  to  bring  out  a 
brilliant  and  large  assemblage  of  people.  The  loyal  citizens 
would  be  there  to  give  to  the  President  and  the  successful  and 
popular  commander  of  his  armies  in  the  field  a  heartfelt  and 
royal  ovation  in  this  the  hour  of  their  triumph.  All  felt  happy 
and  secure.  That  they  were  coming  together  to  witness,  on  that 
night,  the  awful  tragedy  of  the  assassination  of  the  nation's  head, 
President  Lincoln,  was  not  dreamed  of  by  any  except  those  who 
had  made  every  preparation  in  advance  for  accomplishing  the 
murderous  plot,  and  who  were  stealthily  slipping  about  through 
the  assembling  crowds,  like  fiends,  to  assure  themselves  that 
every  arrangement  for  the  successful  accomplishment  of  their 
hellish  purpose  was  complete.  During  the  day  General  Grant 
received  a  telegram  that  called  him  to  Philadelphia  on  business, 
and  owing  to  this  apparently  providential  circumstance  he  was 
prevented  from  accompanying  the  President  to  the  theatre  on  that 
eventful  night,  and  also,  in  all  probability,  from  being,  with  the 
President,  a  victim  of  the  plot,  in  which  there  is  good  reason  to 
conclude,  from  all  the  evidence,  his  life  was  included,  and  that 
for  him  an  assassin  had  been  provided. 


ASSASSINATION  OF  THE  PRESIDENT.  37 

In  lieu  of  General  and  Mrs.  Grant,  President  Lincoln  had  taken 
Major  Rathbone  and  Miss  Harris,  the  step-son  and  daughter  of 
Senator  Harris,  of  New  York,  into  the  Presidential  party.  On 
reaching  the  theatre  at  a  somewhat  late  hour,  and  after  the  play 
had  commenced,  as  soon  as  the  presence  of  the  President  became 
known,  the  actors  stopped  playing,  the  band  struck  up  "  Hail  to 
the  Chief,"  and  the  audience  rose  and  received  him  with  vociferous 
cheering. 

The  party  proceeded  along  the  rear  of  the  dress  circle,  and 
entered  the  box  that  had  been  prepared  for  them,  the  President 
taking  the  rocking  chair  that  had  been  placed  there  for  him  on 
the  left  of  the  box,  and  nearest  to  the  audience,  about  four  feet 
from  the  door  of  entrance  to  the  box.  Major  Rathbone  and  the 
ladies  found  seats  on  the  President's  right.  During  this  time  the 
conspirators  were  on  the  alert,  scanning  the  situation,  passing  about 
so  as  to  keep  up  a  communication  with  each  other,  in  preparation 
for  their  work.  Booth  had  arranged  with  Payne  to  assassinate 
Secretary  Seward  at  the  same  time  that  he  would  assassinate  the 
President ;  and  no  doubt  had  planned  for  Payne,  after  accomplish 
ing  his  task,  to  join  him  and  Herold  in  their  flight,  crossing  the 
Eastern  Branch  at  the  Navy  Yard  bridge,  and  then  to  pass  down 
through  Maryland  and  cross  the  Potomac,  at  a  selected  point,  into 
Virginia,  where  they  might  consider  themselves  as  being  safe 
amongst  their  friends.  Secretary  Seward  was  known  to  have 
received  severe  injuries  from  the  upsetting  of  his  carriage,  and 
to  be  lying  in  a  critical  condition  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Verdi. 
Booth  had  planned  to  take  advantage  of  this  circumstance  for 
gaining  admittance  for  Payne  into  the  sick  chamber,  where,  by 
springing  with  the  ferocity  of  a  tiger  upon  the  sick  man,  he  might 
make  quick  work  in  dispatching  him  with  his  dagger.  To  this 
end  he  had  prepared  a  package  rolled  up  in  paper,  and  had 
schooled  Payne  in  the  artifice,  teaching  him  to  represent  himself  as 
having  been  sent  by  Dr.  Verdi  with  this  package  of  medicine,  which 
it  was  necessary  he  should  deliver  in  person,  as  he  had  important 
verbal  directions  as  to  the  manner  of  its  use,  which  required  him 
to  see  the  Secretary. 

About  ten  o'clock  Booth  rode  up  the  alley  back  of  the  theatre 


38  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

where  he  had  been  accustomed  to  keep  his  horse,  and  having 
reached  the  rear  entrance,  called  for  Ned  three  times,  each  time 
a  little  louder  than  before.  At  the  third  call  Ned  Spangler 
answered  to  his  summons  by  appearing  at  the  door.  Booth's  first 
salutation  was  in  the  form  of  a  question:  "  Ned,  you  will  help  me 
all  you  can,  won't  you?"  To  which  Spangler  replied,  "  Oh, 
yes !  "  Booth  then  requested  him  to  send  "  Peanuts  "  (a  boy 
employed  about  the  theatre),  to  hold  his  horse.  Spangler  gave 
the  boy  orders  to  do  this,  and  upon  the  boy  making  the  objection 
that  he  might  be  out  of  place  at  the  time  he  had  a  duty  to  per 
form,  Spangler  bade  him  go,  saying  that  he  would  stand  responsi 
ble  for  him.  The  boy  then  took  the  reins,  and  held  the  horse  for 
about  half  an  hour,  until  Booth  returned  to  reward  him  with  a 
curse  and  a  kick,  as  he  jerked  the  rein  from  him  preparatory  to- 
remounting  for  his  flight.  After  entering  the  theatre,  Booth 
passed  rapidly  across  the  stage,  glancing  at  the  box  occupied  by 
his  intended  victim,  and  looking  up  his  accomplices,  he  passed 
out  of  the  front  door  on  to  the  walk  where  he  was  met  by  two  of 
his  fellow  conspirators.  One  of  these  was  a  low,  villainous-look 
ing  fellow,  whilst  the  other  was  a  very  neatly-dressed  man.  Booth 
held  a  private  conference  with  these  by  the  door  where  he  and  the 
vulgar-looking  fellow  had  stationed  themselves.  The  neatly- 
dressed  man  crossed  the  walk  to  the  rear  of  the  President's  car 
riage  and  peeped  into  it.  One  of  the  witnesses,  who  was  sitting 
on  the  platform  in  front  of  the  theatre,  had  his  attention  arrested 
by  the  manner  and  conduct  of  these  men,  and  so  watched  them 
very  closely. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  second  act  that  Booth  and  his  two 
fellow  conspirators  appeared  at  the  door.  Booth  said,  "  I  think 
he  will  come  down  now  "  ;  and  they  alligned  themselves  to  await 
his  coming.  Their  communications  with  each  other  were  in 
whispered  tones.  Finding  that  the  President  would  remain  until 
the  close  of  the  play,  they  then  began  to  prepare  to  assassinate 
him  in  the  theatre.  The  neatly-dressed  man  called  the  time  three 
times  in  succession  at  short  intervals,  each  time  a  little  louder 
than  before.  Booth  now  entered  the  saloon,  took  a  drink  of 
whiskey,  and  then  went  at  once  into  the  theatre.  He  passed 


ASSASSINATION  OF   THE   PRESIDENT,  39 

quickly  along  next  to  the  wall  behind  the  chairs,  and  having 
reached  a  point  near  the  door  that  led  to  the  passage  behind  the 
box,  he  stopped,  took  a  small  pack  of  visiting  cards  from  his 
pocket,  selected  one  and  replaced  the  others  ;  stood  a  second  with  it 
in  his  hand,  and  then  showed  it  to  the  President's  messenger,  who 
was  sitting  just  below  him,  and  then,  without  waiting,  passed 
through  the  door  from  the  lobby  into  the  passage,  closing  and 
barring  it  after  him.  Taking  a  hasty,  but  careful,  look  through 
the  hole  which  he  had  had  made  in  the  door  for  the  purpose  o'f 
assuring  himself  of  the  President's  position,  and  cocking  his  pistol 
and  with  his  finger  on  the  trigger,  he  pulled  open  the  door,  and 
stealthily  entered  the  box,  where  he  stood  right  behind  and  within 
three  feet  of  the  President.  The  play  had  advanced  to  the  second 
scene  of  the  third  act,  and  whilst  the  audience  was  intensely  in 
terested  Booth  fired  the  fatal  shot  —  the  ball  penetrating  the 
skull  on  the  back  of  the  left  side  of  the  head,  inflicting  a  wound  in 
the  brain  (the  ball  passing  entirely  through  and  lodging  behind 
the  right  eye),  of  which  he  died  at  about  half-past  seven  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  fifteenth.  He  was  unconscious  from  the 
moment  he  was  struck  until  his  spirit  passed  from  earth.  An 
unspeakable  calm  settled  on  that  remarkable  face,  leaving  the 
impress  of  a  happy  soul  on  the  casket  it  had  left  behind. 

Thus  died  the  man  \vho  said,  "  Senator  Douglass  says  he  don't 
care  whether  slavery  is  voted  up,  or  voted  down ;  but  God  cares, 
and  humanity  cares,  and  I  care." 

As  soon  as  Booth  had  fired  his  pistol,  and  was  satisfied  that  his 
end  was  accomplished,  he  cried  out,  "  Revenge  for  the  South  !  " 
and  throwing  his  pistol  down,  he  took  his  dagger  in  his  right 
hand,  and  placed  his  left  hand  on  the  balustrade  preparatory  to 
his  leap  of  twelve  feet  to  the  stage.  Just  at  this  moment  Major 
Rathbone  sprang  forward  and  tried  to  catch  him.  In  this  he 
failed,  but  received  a  severe  cut  in  his  arm  from  a  back-handed 
thrust  of  Booth's  dagger.  Time  was  everything  now  to  the 
assassin.  He  must  make  good  his  escape  whilst  the  audience 
stood  dazed,  and  before  it  had  time  to  comprehend  clearly  what 
had  happened.  With  his  left  hand  on  the  railing,  he  boldly 
leaped  from  the  box  to  the  stage.  The  front  of  the  box  had  been 


40  ASSASSIXATIO.V   OF  LINCOLN. 

•draped  for  the  occasion  with  the  American  flag,  which  was 
stretched  across  its  front,  and  reached  down  nearly  or  quite  to  the 
floor.  In  the  descent,  Booth's  spur  caught  in  the  flag,  tearing  out 
a  piece  which  he  dragged  nearly  half  way  across  the  stage.  The 
flag,  however,  was  avenged  for  this  double  insult  which  he  had  put 
upon  it;  for  by  this  entanglement  his  descent  was  deflected,  caus 
ing  him  to  strike  the  stage  obliquely,  and  partially  to  fall,  thus 
fracturing  the  fibula  of  his  left  leg,  on  account  of  which  injury 
his  flight  was  impeded,  and  his  permanent  escape  made  impossi 
ble.  As  he  recovered  himself  from  his  partial  fall  and  started  to 
run  across  the  stage  with  his  dagger  brandished  aloft,  he  cried  out 
in  a  theatrical  tone,  "  Sic  semper  tyrannis!  "  and  quickly  passed 
out  at  a  little  back  door  opening  into  the  alley  where  he  had  left 
his  horse,  and,  though  closely  pursued,  succeeded  in  mounting, 
and  rode  rapidly  away. 

Of  course  he  could  not  afford  to  run  any  risks  in  regard  to  his 
escape,  and  for  all  this  he  had  made  his  arrangements  in  advance. 
Spangler  had  faithfully  redeemed  his  promise  to  render  him  all 
the  aid  he  could  by  keeping  the  passage  to  the  door  clear  at  the 
critical  moment,  and  also  by  doing  all  he  could  to  retard  pursuit. 
When  a  fellow-employee  cried  out,  "That  was  Booth  !  "  Ned  ordered 
him  to  shut  up,  saying  "You  don't  know  who  it  was."  Booth 
was  closely  pursued  by  a  man  by  the  name  of  Stewart,  who  fol 
lowed  him  into  the  alley,  making  every  effort  he  could  to  stop 
him ;  but  Booth  kept  his  horse  in  motion,  so  that  Stewart  failed 
to  get  hold  of  the  rein,  and  the  assassin  was  soon  off  at  a  rapid 
pace. 

Stewart  testified  that  Spangler,  or  a  man  resembling  him,  stood 
near  the  door,  and  could  have  prevented  Booth's  exit  had  he  been 
so  disposed.  It  is  evident  his  purpose  was  to  aid,  rather  than 
hinder,  his  escape.  All  the  occupants  of  the  stage,  actors  and 
assistants,  male  and  female,  were  in  a  state  of  confusion  and 
intense  excitement  except  this  man,  who  evidently  had  not  been 
taken  by  surprise,  but  was  prepared  in  mind  for  what  had 
happened,  and  had  played  his  part  in  the  tragedy. 

At  the  same  hour  that  Booth  fired  the  fatal  shot,  Payne 
appeared  at  the  door  of  Secretary  Seward's  house,  in  the  guise 


ASSASSINATION'  OF  THE  PRESIDENT.  41 

of  a  messenger  from  Dr.  Verdi,  holding  in  his  hand  the  package 
that  Booth  had  prepared  for  him,  and  demanded  to  see  the 
Secretary,  saying  that  he  had  a  verbal  message  which  was  of 
particular  importance  in  regard  to  the  use,  or  application  of,  the 
medicine,  and  that  he  must  see  the  Secretary  himself.  Dr.  Verdi 
had  left  his  patient  but  a  short  time  previous,  and  had  consoled 
the  family  that  had  for  days  been  suffering  the  greatest  anxiety  on 
account  of  the  Secretary's  condition  by  taking  a  favorable  view  of 
the  symptoms.  The  family,  worn  with  watching  and  anxiety,  were 
disposing  of  themselves  for  the  night.  Major  A.  H.  Seward  had 
retired  to  his  room.  Sergeant  George  F.  Robinson,  acting  as  attend 
ant  nurse,  was  watching  by  the  bedside,  in  company  with  Miss 
Seward,  the  Secretary's  daughter.  Frederick  Seward  occupied  the 
room  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.  All  the  rooms  occupied  by  the 
Secretary  and  his  family  were  on  the  second  floor,  and  were  reached 
by  a  flight  of  stairs  in  the  hallway. 

The  second  waiter,  William  H.  Bell,  a  colored  lad  of  nineteen, 
was  stationed  at  the  hall  door.  Being  somewhat  relieved  of  their 
anxiety  by  the  doctor's  favorable  view  of  the  case,  all  were 
anticipating  a  night  of  quiet  rest.  The  door  bell  rang,  and  was 
responded  to  by  Bell,  the  colored  waiter.  Immediately  upon  his 
opening  of  the  door,  Payne  stepped  into  the  hall.  He  was  a  tall, 
broad-shouldered,  muscular  man,  as  agile  and  ferocious  as  a 
panther;  a  low-browed,  scowling,  villainous-looking  specimen  of 
humanity,  the  animal  preponderating  largely  in  every  feature  of 
his  visage  and  expression  of  his  countenance.  There  he  stood, 
holding  in  his  left  hand  the  package,  and  keeping  his  right  hand 
in  his  overcoat  pocket.  He  demanded  of  the  boy  to  be  allowed 
to  see  the  Secretary,  telling  his  story  about  being  sent  by  Dr. 
Verdi  to  deliver  the  medicine  with  his  directions.  The  porter  told 
him  that  his  orders  were  to  admit  no  one,  and  that  he  could  not  see 
Mr.  Seward  ;  that  he  would  deliver  the  package  himself.  To  this 
Payne  would  not  consent,  but  persisted  in  saying  that  he  must  see 
Mr.  Seward.  After  considerable  parleying,  he  started  up  stairs, 
and  the  porter,  seeing  that  he  would  go,  and  thinking  that  he 
might  complain  of  his  conduct  to  the  Secretary,  asked  him  to 
pardon  him,  to  which  Payne  replied,  "  O,  I  know,  that's  all  right." 


42  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

He  was  wearing  heavy  boots,  and  took  no  pains  to  walk  lightly 
as  he  went  up  the  stairs,  whereupon  the  porter  requested  him 
not  to  make  so  much  noise,  to  which,  however,  he  paid  no  atten 
tion.  As  he  approached  the  head  of  the  stairs,  he  was  met  by 
Mr.  Frederick  Seward,  who  had  been  attracted  by  the  noise,  to 
whom  he  said,  "  I  want  to  see  Mr.  Seward."  Frederick  went  into 
his  father's  room,  and  finding  him  asleep,  returned  saying,  "  You 
cannot  see  him."  All  this  time  Payne  stood  holding  out  the  pack 
age  in  his  left  hand,  grasping  with  his  right  hand  the  pistol  in  his 
overcoat  pocket.  Frederick  requested  him  to  give  him  the  pack 
age,  saying  he  would  deliver  it ;  but  Payne  persisted  in  saying  that 
that  would  not  do ;  he  imist  see  Mr.  Seward,  —  he  must  see  him. 

Frederick  finally  said,  "  I  am  the  proprietor  here,  and  his  son; 
if  you  cannot  leave  your  message  with  me,  you  cannot  leave  it  at 
all."  Payne  still  continued  parleying  with  Frederick  for  some 
time ;  but  finding  that  his  talking  availed  nothing,  he  started  as  if 
to  go  down  stairs.  This,  however,  was  only  a  feint  on  his  part  in 
order  to  throw  Frederick  off  of  his  guard  and  to  get  rid  of  the 
porter  who  stood  behind  him.  He  again  walked  so  heavily  that 
the  porter  requested  him  not  to  make  so  much  noise ;  but  at  that 
moment,  Payne,  having  prepared  himself  for  the  encounter,  turned 
quickly,  and  making  a  spring  towards  Frederick,  struck  him  two 
or  three  times  with  the  pistol,  which  he  had  all  the  time  held  in 
his  hand,  fracturing  his  skull  and  knocking  him  senseless  to  the 
floor.  Having  learned  which  was  the  room  occupied  by  the 
invalid  by  seeing  Frederick  go  into  it,  Payne  rushed  past 
the  prostrate  man,  opened  the  door  of  the  Secretary's  room,  and 
was  met  by  Sergeant  Robinson.  Having  broken  and  thrown 
down  his  revolver  in  his  encounter  with  Frederick,  he  had  drawn 
his  dagger,  and  at  his  first  encounter  with  the  sergeant  he  struck 
him  with  his  knife,  cutting  an  ugly  gash  in  his  forehead,  and 
partially  knocking  him  down.  He  then  pressed  rapidly  forward, 
knife  in  hand,  to  where  the  invalid  lay  in  his  bed.  Throwing 
himself  upon  him,  he  commenced  striking  at  his  face  and  neck 
with  his  dagger.  The  Secretary  was  reclining  in  a  half-sitting 
posture,  having  the  coverings  well  drawn  up  about  his  neck 
and  chin,  to  which  circumstance  the  failure  of  the  would-be 


ASSASSfNATJON   OF   THE  PRESIDENT.  43 

assassin  to  take  his  life  was  no  doubt  due.  The  sergeant,  as  soon 
as  he  recovered  his  equilibrium,  sprang  upon  Payne,  and  Major 
Seward,  having  been  awakened  by  the  screams  of  his  sister,  sprang 
into  the  room  in  his  night-dress.  Finding  the  sergeant  grappling 
him  in  such  a  way  as  to  hinder  the  effectiveness  of  his  thrusts  at 
the  Secretary,  and  probably  thinking  that  he  had  accomplished  his 
purpose,  he  turned  his  attention  toward  making  his  escape.  In 
disentangling  himself  from  the  grasp  of  the  two  men  who  now  had 
hold  of  him,  he  gave  to  Major  Seward  several  severe  cuts  about 
the  head  and  face,  crying  all  the  time,  "  I  am  mad  !  I  am  mad  ! 
Finally,  pulling  himself  loose,  he  started  to  make  his  way  to  the 
street.  Meeting  a  Mr.  Emrick  W.  Hansel,  another  nurse,  on  the 
stairs,  he  made  a  thrust  at  him  with  his  knife,  inflicting  an  ugly 
wound.  He  now  left  the  house,  leaving  five  of  its  inmates 
stabbed,  cut,  and  bleeding  behind  him.  Having  reached  the 
street,  he  deliberately  threw  his  dagger  away,  mounted  the  horse 
which  he  had  hitched  in  front  of  the  door,  and  rode  off.  Thus, 
for  the  time  being,  this  inhuman  monster  passed  from  sight,  hav 
ing  made  good  his  retreat  minus  his  dagger,  hat,  and  revolver. 
He  was  not  a  moment  too  soon  in  withdrawing  from  the  house. 
The  colored  porter,  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  violence  done  to 
Frederick  Seward  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  ran  down  and  out  into 
the  street  with  the  cry  of  "  murder,"  and  did  not  stop  until  he 
reached  General  Angur's  headquarters,  where  he  reported  the 
occurrence  and  ran  back  immediately,  accompanied  by  two  or 
three  soldiers.  They  reached  the  house  just  in  time  to  see  Payne 
mount  his  horse  and  ride  away.  He  was  followed  some  distance 
by  the  porter,  who  kept  nearly  up  with  him  for  some  time,  as  he 
rode  slowly  at  first,  but  he  then  mended  his  pace,  and  was  soon 
out  of  sight.  The  soldiers,  having  no  orders  and  not  compre 
hending  the  situation,  made  no  effort  to  stop  him,  although  the 
colored  boy  who  gave  the  alarm,  and  who  preceded  them,  pointed 
him  out  to  them  as  the  man  who  had  so  ruthlessly  broken  the 
quiet  of  that  house  and  produced  such  consternation  amongst  its 
peaceful  inmates. 

Although  Payne  rode  away  so  leisurely  at  the  start,  he   put   his 
horse  to  the  top  of   his  speed  as  soon  as  he  had   fairly  cleared   the 


44  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN1. 

streets  and  reached  the  suburbs  of  the  city.  About  two  hours 
later,  a  bay  horse,  saddled,  and  blind  of  an  eye,  came  running 
up  a  by-road  that  led  to  Camp  Barry,  about  three-fourths  of  a 
mile  east  of  the  capitol,  and  was  there  halted  and  taken  charge  of 
and  placed  in  General  Angur's  stables.  The  horse,  when  found, 
bore  marks  of  having  been  ridden  at  a  furious  rate.  The  sweat 
was  streaming  from  every  pore  and  dripping  to  the  ground.  This 
proved  to  be  the  bay  horse  that  Booth  had  bought  from  Gardner, 
the  neighbor  of  Dr.  Mudd,  in  November,  1864,  and  which  he  sold 
to  his  co-conspirator,  Arnold,  in  January,  1865,  according  to  his 
own  statement  made  some  time  before  the  assassination. 

This  was  no  doubt  the  horse  ridden  by  Payne  on  that  night.  The 
most  probable  theory  is,  that  being  pushed  and  urged  at  a  furious 
rate,  and  being  blind  of  an  eye,  he  stumbled  and  pitched  headlong, 
throwing,  and  probably  stunning,  his  rider,  after  which  he  regained 
his  footing  and  made  his  escape  before  Payne  had  sufficiently 
recovered  to  get  hold  of  him.  The  fact  of  his  being  a  little  lame 
when  caught  goes  to  sustain  this  theory.  Thus  was  the  would-be 
assassin  prevented  from  joining  his  comrades,  Booth  and  Herold, 
in  their  flight,  and  compelled  to  skulk  and  hide  in  the  suburbs  of 
the  city  for  the  next  two  days.  He  was  without  arms  and  hatless, 
and  was  compelled  to  throw  away  his  overcoat  "which  was  after 
wards  found  "on  account  of  the  bloodstains  on  its  sleeves.  He 
knew  that  the  alarm  would  spread  rapidly  throughout  the  vicinity, 
and  in  his  present  condition  he  dared  not  venture  out  through  the 
country,  so  he  was  compelled  to  spend  the  time  in  hiding  and 
skulking  until  he  was  forced  from  his  retreat  by  hunger.  Making 
a  covering  for  his  head  out  of  a  sleeve  from  his  under-shirt,  which 
he  drew  over  it  like  a  turban,  he  shouldered  a  pick,  which  he  had 
stolen  from  the  trenches,  and  at  near  the  hour  of  midnight  on  the 
I  /th  he  entered  the  city.  He  went  directly  to  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Surratt,  as  the  safest  place  he  could  find  to  rest,  hide,  and  refresh 
himself,  and  obtain  an  outfit  in  which  he  might  make  his  escape. 
Here  he  felt  that  he  could  trust  the  secret  of  his  presence.  Un 
fortunately  for  him,  as. well  as  for  Mrs.  Surratt,  the  government 
had  by  this  time  come  into  possession  of  such  information  as 
justified  it  in  sending  its  military  police  to  that  house,  with 
orders  to  arrest  its  inmates. 


ASSASSINATION   OF   THE   PRESIDENT.  4$ 

It  had  been  discovered  that  the  house  of  Mrs.  Surratt  had  been  the 
headquarters  of  the  conspirators  in  Washington  City.  The  officer 
in  charge  of  the  police,  Major  H.  W.  Smith,  had  reached  the 
house  but  a  short  time  before  Payne  arrived.  Payne  came  with 
his  turban  on  his  head,  and  the  pick  on  his  shoulder,  and  rang  the 
door-bell.  Major  Smith  responded  to  the  bell,  and  asked  him  to 
come  in.  Seeing  the  officer,  he  said  he  believed  he  was  mistaken 
in  the  house.  Being  asked  whose  house  he  sought,  he  replied, 
"Mrs.  Surratt's."  The  officer  replied,  "This  is  the  place,"  and 
drawing  his  revolver  on  him,  ordered  him  to  come  in.  Payne 
entered,  and  the  officer  closed  the  door.  He  then  inquired  who 
he  was,  and  what  he  wanted.  To  these  questions  he  replied  that 
he  was  a  poor  man,  and  a  laborer,  and  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had  sent 
for  him  to  dig  a  drain  for  her.  On  being  asked  what  brought 
him  there  at  that  time  of  night,  he  replied  that  he  "  merely  called 
to  see  what  time  Mrs.  Surratt  wanted  him  to  go  to  work  in  the 
morning."  The  officer  saw  that  his  hands  bore  no  marks  of  labor, 
and  at  once  suspected  he  had  caged  one  of  the  conspirators.  He 
placed  him  under  arrest  and  took  him  along  with  the  others  in  the 
house,  to  General  Angur's  head-quarters,  where  he  was  held  for 
identification.  William  H.  Bell,  the  colored  boy  who  was  second 
waiter  at  Mr.  Seward's,  being  sent  for,  at  once  unhesitatingly 
identified  him  as  the  man  who  had  produced  such  consternation 
in  the  house  of  Mr.  Seward,  on  the  night  of  the  i/j-th,  by  his 
determined  efforts  to  take  the  Secretary's  life.  Lewis  Payne, 
having  been  thus  captured  and  identified,  and  Mrs.  Mary  E. 
Surratt,  were  the  first  amongst  the  conspirators  to  be  held  for 
trial. 

After  the  attack  at  Secretary  Seward's,  Dr.  Verdi  and  two  or 
three  other  surgeons  were  at  once  called  to  examine  and  treat  the 
Secretary  and  the  other  victims  of  Payne's  dagger.  The  house  in 
which  the  onslaught  was  made  had  the  appearance  of  a  charnal 
house  or  slaughter-pen.  The  Secretary  was  found  to  have  received 
three  or  four  severe  cuts  about  the  face  and  neck,  which  were  only 
made  dangerous  by  the  loss  of  blood  they  had  occasioned  and  the 
weak  condition  of  the  patient. 

The  Secretary  made  a  slow  but  good  recovery.      Of  the   other 


46  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

four  wounded  men,  the  wounds  of  Mr.  Frederick  Seward  proved  the 
most  serious,  as  his  skull  had  been  fractured  and  depressed,  so  as 
to  render  him  unconscious,  from  which  condition  he  was  only 
recalled  by  a  surgical  operation. 

All  finally  recovered.  Here  again  we  are  called  to  notice  the 
providences  in  the  case,  leading  to  the  capture  of  Payne,  and  to 
the  bringing  on  his  head  the  just  reward  of  his  deeds. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE    NEWS    COMMUNICATED    TO    THE    WORLD,    AND     ITS     EFFECT. 

ON  the  morning  of  the  I5th  of  April,  1865,  the  telegraph  wires 
carried  to  every  part  of  the  United  States  that  was  in  communi 
cation  with  Washington,  and  to  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world,  the 
astounding  intelligence  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the 
United  States,  had  been  assassinated  on  the  previous  night  by 
John  Wilkes  Booth,  at  Ford's  Theatre  in  Washington  City ;  that  at 
the  same  hour  a  most  savage  attempt  had  been  made  to  assassinate 
the  Secretary  of  State,  Hon.  William  H.  Seward,  and  that  he  was 
lying  in  a  most  critical  and  dangerous  condition  from  the  wounds 
which  he  had  received,  and  would  probably  die.  Never,  perhaps, 
in  the  history  of  the  race  were  so  many  hearts  bleeding,  and  so 
many  eyes  suffused  with  tears  at  one  time,  as  on  that  sorrowful 
day.  The  nation  was  filled  with  grief,  mingled  with  indignation 
and  horror  at  the  deed.  The  land  was  literally  draped  in  mourn 
ing.  Every  city,  and  every  town  and  village,  displayed  the  sable 
habiliments  of  grief.  The  response  came  back  to  our  people,  in 
kind,  from  every  civilized  people  on  earth. 

The  writer  was  at  the  time  a  member  of  Grant's  victorious 
army,  and  had  large  opportunities  for  witnessing  the  effects  pro 
duced  by  the  sad  intelligence  on  the  soldiery  of  our  country. 
From  the  highest  officers  down  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the  army, 
sorrow  and  grief  were  depicted  on  every  countenance.  From 
Appomattox  to  Richmond  the  victorious  army  that  had  been 
filled  with  joyful  and  hopeful  anticipations  over  its  successes,  and 
the  prospect  of  the  speedy  dawn  of  peace,  and  of  returning  to 
their  homes  and  friends  and  to  the  pursuits  of  peaceful  life,  after 
four  years  of  arduous  military  service,  was  at  once  plunged  into 
the  deepest  sadness  and  gloom.  Strong  men  wept.  It  was  as 

47 


48  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

though  every  soldier  had  lost  his  dearest  friend.  There  was 
always  a  day  of  sadness  in  the  army  after  every  great  battle,  even 
in  the  triumphs  of  victory,  at  the  thought  of  the  many  brave 
comrades  who  had  given  up  their  lives  for  their  country,  and 
would  never  again  be  seen  in  the  ranks,  —  who  were  even  then 
being  gathered  up  from  the  field  and  carefully  laid  away  in  silence 
to  await  the  resurrection  morn ;  and  of  the  others,  who  with  loss 
of  limbs  and  fearful  wounds,  were  receiving  the  care  of  the 
surgeons  and  nurses  in  the  hospitals  improvised  for  the  occasion ; 
but  never  before  had  such  a  pall  of  grief  been  thrown  over  the 
entire  army. 

The  depth  of  sorrow  into  which  the  nation  was  plunged  by  the 
news  of  his  assassination  revealed,  as  nothing  else  could  have 
done,  the  place  Abraham  Lincoln  held  in  the  confidence  and 
affections  of  the  loyal  people  of  the  land.  The  first  shock  of  the 
sad  intelligence  was  almost  paralytic.  The  people  —  even  the 
army  —  for  the  moment  stood  dazed  and  bewildered.  What  was 
the  meaning  of  all  this?  Was  the  war  to  be  prolonged?  Were 
we  now  to  be  called  upon  to  turn  our  victorious  arms  upon  the 
enemy  in  the  rear,  of  whose  existence  we  had  all  the  time  been 
conscious?  Such  were  the  questions  that  first  suggested  them 
selves.  If  so,  the  army  was  then  in  a  state  of  mind  to  have  made 
a  short  work  of  it.  The  victory  over  our  armed  foe  in  front,  who 
had  so  bravely  met  us,  and  often  with  success,  on  many  a  hotly- 
contested  field,  would  never  have  been  yielded  to  the  disloyal 
cowards  who,  through  all  of  these  years  of  the  war,  from  their  safe 
retreats  and  hiding-places,  threw  every  obstacle  they  could  in  the 
way  of  our  now  martyred  President,  and  who  had  planned  and 
accomplished  his  taking  off. 

The  extent  of  the  conspiracy  had  not  as  yet  been  revealed ;  but 
enough  was  known  to  the  government  to  evince  the  fact  that  this 
was  an  act  of  deep  political  significance,  having  behind  it  a  very 
different  class  of  men  from  the  dissolute  and  depraved  assassins 
who  were  executing  their  behests,  and  not  merely  done  for  the 
gratification  of  personal  and  political  revenge.  It  was  obvious 
that  the  occasion  called  for  the  most  vigorous  and  decided 
measures  on  the  part  of  the  government  to  meet  and  overcome 


THE  NEWS    COMMUNICATED    TO    THE    WORLD.  49 

the  strategy  of  assassinations  just  now  entered  upon.  It  very 
soon  became  known  to  the  authorities  that  the  plot  had  been  but 
very  partially  executed,  and  that  the  purpose  of  the  conspirators- 
was  to  subvert  the  constitution  by  depriving  the  nation  of  its 
executive  head,  and  leaving  no  constitutional  way  of  electing  a 
new  President,  and  at  the  same  time  to  deprive  the  armies  in  the 
field  of  a  lawful  commander.  To  accomplish  this,  the  President,. 
Vice-President,  Secretary  of  State,  and  General  Grant  were  all  to- 
have  been  assassinated.  The  conspirators  in  Canada  and  also  the 
rebel  president,  when  they  heard  that  only  President  Lincoln  had 
been  killed,  could  not  conceal  their  disappointment,  and  virtually 
confessed  that  their  deep-laid  scheme  had  proven  a  failure.  The 
former  still  adhered  to  their  purpose,  and  in  their  rage  declared, 
"  We  are  not  done  with  them  yet."  We  hardly  dare  to  venture 
upon  the  consideration  of  what  would  have  been  the  result  had 
they  completed  the  work  they  had  planned.  We  have  reason  for 
profound  thankfulness  to  that  God  who  has  thus  far  so  wisely  and 
graciously  watched  over  our  national  progress,  that  he  did  not 
permit  its  accomplishment.  But  we,  who  were  actors  on  the 
stage  at  that  time,  knowing  how  the  principal  actors  in  our 
national  affairs,  both  civil  and  military,  had  been  schooled  in  self- 
sacrificing,  patriotic  devotion  to  the  institutions  of  our  fathers,  and 
their  unfaltering  purpose  to  transmit  them  unimpaired  to  their 
children  and  children's  children  for  a  perpetual  inheritance,  can 
but  feel  assured  that  even  in  the  dire  extremity  now  under  consid 
eration  they  would  have  proven  true  to  their  trust,  and  would 
have  found  a  way  to  restore  all  of  the  machinery  of  government 
provided  for  in  the  Constitution.  The  people  are  above  the 
Constitution  even  as  the  maker  is  above  the  thing  made. 

The  rebel  armies  had  been  so  completely  overcome  that  tfrey~ 
could  no  longer  have  formed  even  a  nucleus  around  which  the 
traitors  in  the  North  could  have  organized  an  opposition  that  could; 
have  been  regarded  with  other  than  feelings  of  contempt  by  our- 
victorious  hosts.  The  time  had  passed  ;  the  opportunity  was  gone:. 
No  wonder  the  conspirators  in  Canada  gnashed  their  teeth  with; 
rage  and  disappointment  because  "  the  boys  had  not  been  allowed' 
to  act  when  they  wanted  to."  They  had  amongst  their/  many: 


50  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

schemes  concocted  during  the  summer  of  1864,  such  as  making 
raids,  liberating  rebel  prisoners  of  war  held  in  Northern  prisons, 
burning  cities,  spreading  pestilence,  and  poisoning  reservoirs,  been 
led  also  to  consider  this  scheme  of  assassinations.  All  of  these 
things  were  to  be  done  in  aid  of  the  rebellion. 

As  their  cause  became  desperate  on  account  of  the  continued 
success  of  our  arms,  so  did  they  become  desperate  in  planning  to 
retrieve.  As  early  as  January,  1865,  they  received  a  communica 
tion  from  Jefferson  Davis  suggesting  these  things  and  urging  them 
to  stop  at  nothing,  however  desperate,  and  plainly  intimating  that 
Lincoln  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  live  ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  latter 
part  of  March,  1865,  that  they  were  prepared  to  present  to  him  a 
definitely-prepared  plan  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purposes 
that  he  could  accept  and  sanction.  They  had  thus  been  long 
delayed,  and  now  they  were  compelled  to  realize  that  their  work 
was  a  failure.  No  wonder  that  they  all,  from  Jefferson  Davis  down, 
felt  and  expressed  grievous  disappointment.  It  reminds  us  of 
Milton's  description  of  the  malignant  schemes,  failures,  disappoint 
ments,  and  rage  of  the  Prince  of  Devils  in  his  contests  with  the 
Almighty. 


CHAPTER   V. 

UNRAVELLING    THE    PLOT.  —  PURSUIT    AND    CAPTURE    OF    BOOTH 
AND    HEROLD. DEATH    OF    BOOTH. 

THE  most  active  measures  were  at  once  resorted  to  by  the 
government  to  discover  the  conspirators,  and  to  capture  all  who 
could  be  found  of  those  engaged  in  it.  The  civil  and  military 
police,  as  also  those  engaged  in  the  secret  service  of  the  govern 
ment,  were  at  once  set  to  work.  It  was  soon  learned  that  Booth 
and  a  co-conspirator,  which  proved  to  be  Herold,  had  passed  over 
the  navy-yard  bridge,  on  horseback,  very  shortly  after  the  hour 
at  which  the  fatal  shot  had  been  fired,  and  were  fleeing  toward 
Surrattsville  and  Bryantown  in  Maryland.  They  had  been  allowed 
to  pass  by  the  sentinel  at  the  bridge,  having  represented  them 
selves  as  citizens  on  their  way  to  their  homes.  Booth  was  first  at 
the  bridge,  and  gave  his  true  name  to  the  sentinel,  saying  that  he 
lived  close  to  Beantown.  Five  minutes  later  Herold  came  and 
gave  his  name  as  Smith,  saying  that  he  lived  at  White  Plains  and 
was  on  his  way  home.  Having  gotten  safely  on  the  road,  they 
directly  joined  company,  and  pushed  on  rapidly,  arriving  at 
Surrattsville  about  midnight. 

Stopping  at  Lloyd's  tavern  in  Surrattsville,  Herold  dismounted 
and  went  into  the  house,  saying  to  Lloyd,  "  For  God's  sake,  make 
haste  and  get  those  things !  "  Lloyd,  understanding  what  he 
wanted  from  the  notification  given  him  by  Mrs.  Surratt  on  the 
evening  previous,  without  making  any  reply,  went  and  got  the 
carbines,  which  he  had  placed  in  his  bedroom  that  they  might  be 
handy,  and  brought  them  to  Herold,  together  with  the  ammunition 
and  field-glass  that  had  been  deposited  with  him,  and  the  two 
bottles  of  whiskey  that  Booth  had  ordered  through  Mrs.  Surratt 
the  evening  before.  Herold  carried  out  to  Booth  one  of  the  bottles 


52  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

of  whiskey,  drinking  from  his  own  bottle  in  the  house  before  going- 
out.  Booth  declined  taking  his  carbine,  saying  his  leg  was  broken 
and  he  could  not  carry  it.  As  they  were  about  leaving,  Booth 
said  to  Lloyd,  "  I  will  tell  you  some  news  if  you  want  to  hear  it " ; 
and  then  went  on  to  say,  "  I  am  pretty  certain  that  we  have  assas 
sinated  the  President  and  Secretary  Seward."  The  moon  was 
now  up  and  shining  brightly,  and  the  two  confessed  criminals 
resumed  their  flight.  The  next  heard  of  them  was  at  the  house 
of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  near  Bryantown,  in  Maryland,  and  about 
thirty  miles  from  Washington,  where  they  arrived  at  about  four 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th,  having  travelled  at  the  rate  of 
six  miles  per  hour. 

Booth's  leg  had  been  broken  by  a  fracture  of  the  fibula,  or 
small  bone  of  the  leg,  when  he  fell  on  the  stage  on  leaping  from 
the  President's  box,  and  by  this  time  had  become  very  painfuL 
He  greatly  needed  the  support  of  a  splint,  and  quiet  as  well.  He 
was  in  a  position,  however,  to  get  neither ;  for  although  he  had 
reached  the  house  of  a  co-conspirator,  who  was  a  country  doctor, 
and  well  disposed  to  render  him  all  the  aid  he  could,  he  appears 
to  have  made  a  very  bungling  out,  dressing  the  broken  limb 
with  some  pasteboard  and  a  bandage  that  gave  but  a  very  imper 
fect  support.  As  to  the  rest  he  required,  that  was  impossible, 
for  although  Mudd  placed  him  in  an  upstairs  room  and  kept  him 
until  the  afternoon,  they  were  admonished  by  seeing  a  squad  of 
soldiers  under  Lieutenant  Dana  passing  down  past  Mudd's  place, 
which  was  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off  the  road  to  Bryantown,  that  there 
was  no  rest  for  the  wicked  ;  and  as  quickly  as  it  could  be  done 
after  the  soldiers  passed,  Mudd  got  rid  of  his  dangerous  charge 
by  sending  them  by  an  unfrequented  route  to  the  house  of  his  friend 
and  neighbor,  Samuel  Cox,  about  six  miles  nearer  to  the  Poto 
mac.  Booth  was  on  no  new  ground,  neither  amongst  strangers 
either  to  his  person  or  to  his  wicked  purpose.  He  had  spent  a 
good  deal  of  his  time  during  the  previous  fall  in  that  part  of 
Maryland,  preparing  a  way  for  his  escape  after  accomplishing  his 
purpose.  His  way  had  seemed  clear  to  him  in  advance ;  his 
route  had  been  selected  ;  his  friendly  acquaintanceships  secured. 
But,  alas !  the  broken  leg.  Under  the  guise  of  looking  at  the 


Westmoreland  C.  H. 


MAF  OF  BOOTH'S  ROUTE. 


UNRAVELLING    THE  PLOT.  53 

country  with  a  desire  to  purchase  lands,  he  had  perfected  all  his 
.arrangements,  and  had  expected  to  pass  swiftly  over  his  route, 
.accompanied  by  Atzerodt  (whose  home  was  in  this  neighbor 
hood,  and  who  knew  all  about  the  contraband  trade  with  the 
rebel  capital,  the  underground  mail  route  between  Richmond  and 
Washington,  and  all  of  the  people  engaged  in  these  operations, 
and  also  the  place  and  facilities  for  crossing  the  Potomac),  and 
also  by  Payne  and  Herold.  He  had  purposed  to  be  safe  on  the 
.•soil  of  the  Old  Dominion  e'er  this  time.  Instead  of  realizing  all 
this,  he  found  himself  a  cripple,  scarcely  able  to  travel,  and  closely 
pursued  by  those  whom  he  knew  to  be  on  his  trail,  with  no  other 
companion  than  his  devoted  but  inefficient  friend,  Herold ;  and 
thus  he  was  compelled  to  realize  that 

"  The  best  laid  schemes  o'  mice  and  men 

Gang  aft  aglee; 

And  lea'  us  nought  but  grief  and  pain 
For  promised  joy." 

Mudd  had  done  all  he  could  to  relieve  him,  but  dare  'not  try  to 
conceal  and  keep  him.  He  could  only  forward  him  to  the  next 
stage  of  his  journey  and  to  a  safe  place  of  concealment.  This  he 
faithfully  did.  Cox  lived  near  Port  Tobacco,  the  home  of 
Atzerodt ;  and  as  his  was  too  public  a  place  to  afford  safety  to  the 
fugitives,  he  turned  them  over  to  his  neighbor,  Thomas  Jones,  a 
contraband  trader  between  Maryland  and  Richmond,  who,  in  the 
midst  of  a  constant  scouring  of  the  country  by  pursuing  parties, 
kept  his  charge  concealed  in  the  woods  near  his  house,  supplying 
them  with  food  and  doing  everything  he  could  for  their  comfort, 
waiting  and  watching  constantly  to  find  an  opportunity  to  get 
them  across  the  Potomac.  They  were  hunted  so  closely  that  they 
could  hear  the  neighing  of  the  horses  of  the  troopers,  and  fearing 
they  might  be  betrayed  by  their  horses  answering  the  calls, 
Herold  led  them  into  a  swamp  near  where  they  lay  concealed  in 
the  pines  and  shot  them. 

The  river  was  being  continually  patroled  by  gun-boats,  and  the 
task  of  getting  his  wards  across  proved  both  difficult  and 
dangerous  to  Jones.  The  proclamation  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
offering  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the  capture  of  Booth, 


54  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

and  warning  all  persons  from  aiding  the  fugitives  in  any  way  in- 
making  their  escape,  had  been  published  broadcast,  yet  Jones  was 
true  to  his  trust.  Neither  the  offered  rewards  nor  the  warnings 
of  the  proclamation  had  any  effect  on  him ;  but  for  a  whole  week 
he  kept  them  secreted  in  the  pines  on  his  premises,  where  Booth 
lay  night  and  day  wrapped  in  a  pair  of  blankets  that  had  most 
likely  been  furnished  him  by  Dr.  Mudd.  Finally,  being  furnished 
by  Jones  with  a  boat,  they  took  their  own  risks  and  effected  a 
crossing ;  but  they  were  seen  by  a  colored  man,  upon  whose 
report  General  Baker  got  on  their  track  and  finally  effected  their 
capture. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Booth  had  selected  this  as  the  route 
for  his  escape  months  before,  and  that  all  of  his  visits  to  this  part 
of  Maryland  had  been  made  with  reference  to  this  plan.  Being  at 
length  across  the  Potomac,  even  though  under  such  unfavorable 
auspices,  Booth  no  doubt  drew  a  free  and  exultant  breath  at 
having  been  permitted  to  set  his  foot  at  last  on  the  soil  of  the 
Old  Dominion.  He  felt  that  he  was  now  amongst  friends  who 
would  aid  him  in  his  progress,  or  help  him  by  concealment,  as 
the  case  might  require ;  and  his  friend  Jones  no  doubt  breathed 
with  a  freedom  he  had  not  known  for  some  days  at  finding  himself 
cut  loose  from  his  dangerous  charge.  Booth  was  greatly  disap 
pointed  at  the  cold  reception  given  him  by  the  people  on  whom 
he  had  counted  so  much  after  crossing  into  Virginia.  He  had. 
expected  to  be  lionized  and  honored  as  the  hero  of  the  age ;  but 
instead  of  that  he  -received  a  comparatively  cold  reception  that 
stung  his  vanity  like  the  poison  of  an  asp. 

It  is  true  the  people  showed  no  disposition  to  betray  him ;  but, 
at  the  same  time,  they  manifested  a  disposition  to  enter  into  no 
compromising  friendship  with  him,  or  in  any  way  to  assume  any 
responsibility  in  his  behalf  by  helping  him  to  escape.  How  much 
of  this  was  due  to  abhorrence  of  his  crime,  and  how  much  to  a 
dread  of  consequences,  can  only  be  a  matter  of  conjecture.  The 
fact  that  they  were  willing  to  let  him  escape,  if  he  could,  would 
throw  the  preponderance  on  the  latter  as  the  governing  motive  of 
their  conduct.  Sad,  indeed,  was  Booth's  condition  at  this  time. 
More  than  a  week  had  elapsed  since  he  had  perpetrated  his  great 


r 


; 

• 


\ 


I 


DAVID  E.  HEROLD. 


UNRAVELLING    THE   PLOT.  55 

crime  and  commenced  his  guilty  flight;  and  now  he  found  him 
self  on  foot,  so  lame  as  scarcely  to  be  able  to  walk  a  step,  even 
with  the  help  of  a  crutch,  and  scarcely  more  than  fifty  miles 
from  his  starting  point.  His  companion  in  crime,  Herold,  was 
now  the  only  human  being  on  whose  friendship  and  fidelity  he 
could  certainly  rely.  A  reward  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
thousand  dollars  offered  for  his  capture,  the  brand  of  Cain  upon 
him,  his  fractured  bone  cutting  into  the  flesh  at  every  movement 
of  his  limb,  —  a  constant  admonition  of  a  frowning  Providence, — 
it  is  no  wonder  that  the  diurnal  entries  in  his  book  begin  to  bear 
evidence  of  a  remorse  that  can  never  be  appeased.  We  can  but 
pity  his  deplorable  condition,  for  he  was  a  fellow-man ;  but 
then  he  was  at  the  same  time  a  monster  in  crime,  directed  by 
hatred  of  a  fellow-man  without  just  cause,  and  of  wickedness  that 
had  brought  upon  him  the  blood  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  best 
of  men,  not  only  of  his  own  age  and  country,  but  of  all  the  ages  of 
the  world.  When  we  contemplate  his  crime,  our  sympathies  refuse 
to  go  with  him,  and  our  sense  of  justice  finds  a  grateful  feeling  of 
relief  in  the  evidence  now  clearly  pointing  to  the  fact  that  he  is 
a  doomed  man. 

By  the  aid  of  his  blind  follower,  Herold,  he  is  able  to  maintain 
his  concealment,  and  after  a  wretched  fashion  to  resume  his  flight 
in  an  old  wagon  drawn  by  two  miserable  horses  and  driven  by  a 
negro.  In  this  state  he  reaches  Port  Conway,  on  the  Rappahannock, 
in  King  George  County,  Virginia.  Here  his  driver  refuses  to  take 
him  any  further.  It  is  just  at  this  juncture  and  in  this  dilemma 
that  they  are  met  by  three  confederate  soldiers,  Major  Ruggles, 
Lieutenant  Bainbridge,  and  Captain  William  Jett,  the  latter  of 
Moseby's  command. 

Herold,  thinking  they  were  recruiting  for  the  rebel  service,  was 
quick  to  see  in  them  a  means  of  assistance  in  getting  South,  and 
under  the  protection  of  the  stars  and  bars,  and  so  revealed  their 
identity,  appealing  to  them  for  assistance.  A  little  later,  Booth, 
getting  out  of  the  wretched  conveyance,  came  forward,  and  to  assure 
himself  of  their  disposition  toward  him,  accosted  them  with  the  in 
terrogatory,  "I  suppose  you  have  been  told  who  we  arc?"  then, 
throwing  himself  back  on  his  crutch,  and  straightening  himself  up, 


56  ASSASSLVATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

with  pistol  cocked  and  drawn,  he  said,  "  Yes,  I  am  Wilkes  Booth, 
the  slayer  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  I  am  worth  just  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  to  the  man  that  captures  me." 
His  attitude  and  speech  was  that  of  a  man  at  bay,  under  the  power 
of  a  desperate  purpose  never  to  be  taken  alive.  These  three  offi 
cers  of  the  confederate  army  (for  they  were  such  at  this  time,  not 
having  been  paroled),  whilst  mildly  protesting  that  they  did  not 
sanction  his  acts  as  an  assassin,  assured  him  that  they  did  not  want 
any  blood  money,  and  promised  to  render  him  all  the  assistance 
in  their  power  in  making  his  escape,  a  promise  which  they  faith 
fully  kept.  Major  Ruggles  dismounted  and  placed  Booth  on  his 
horse,  when  the  whole  party  crossed  over  the  Rappahannock,  from 
Port  Conway,  in  King  George,  to  Port  Royal,  in  Caroline  County, 
Virginia,  and  after  an  ineffectual  effort  to  find  quarters  for  Booth 
in  the  town,  they  took  him  three  miles  on  the  road  to  Bowling 
Green,  the  county  seat  of  the  latter  county,  where  they  succeeded 
in  getting  a  man  by  the  name  of  Garrett  to  take  him  in,  with  the 
understanding  that  he  would  do  all  he  could  for  his  comfort  and 
safety.  Garrett  took  Booth  and  Herold  in  with  a  full  knowledge 
of  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  and  with  some  manifest  reluctance  from 
a  knowledge  of  the  danger  he  would  thus  incur. 

Bainbridge  and  Herold  went  on  to  Bowling  Green,  whilst  Ruggles 
and  Jett  remained  over  night  in  the  woods  near  the  house,  Booth 
being  hid  away  on  the  premises  and  cared  for.  On  the  following 
day  Captain  Jett  went  to  Bowling  Green  on  a  visit,  prompted  by 
the  tender  passion,  where  he  intended  to  remain  a  few  days ;  and 
Lieutenant  Bainbridge  returned  to  the  Garrett  farm,  where  he 
rejoined  Major  Ruggles.  The  two  started  for  Port  Conway,  but 
before  getting  there,  learned  that  the  town  was  full  of  Yankee 
cavalry,  when  they  lost  no  time  in  returning  to  Garrett's,  and  gave 
warning  to  Booth,  advising  him  to  lose  no  time  in  fleeing  to  a 
piece  of  woods,  which  they  pointed  out  to  him,  and  then  turned 
to  look  out  for  their  own  safety.  The  cavalry  of  which  they  got 
this  notice  was  a  squad  detailed  from  the  Sixteenth  New  York 
Regiment,  commanded  by  Lieutenant  Dougherty,  which  had  been 
ordered  to  report  to  General  L.  C.  Baker  of  the  Secret  Service 
Department,  and  by  him  placed  in  charge  of  E.  J.  Conger  and 
L.  B.  Baker,  officers  belonging  to  his  detective  force. 


UNRAVELLING    THE   PLOT. 


57 


Arriving  at  Port  Conway  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  subsequent 
to  the  crossing  of  the  parties  above  referred  to,  and  finding  the  wife 
of  the  ferry  keeper  at  the  ferry-house  sitting  and  conversing  with 
another  woman,  Colonel  Conger  exhibited  to  them  a  photograph 
of  Booth,  and  informed  them  that  that  was  the  man  they  wanted. 
It  at  once  became  apparent  to  him,  from  the  manner  and  actions 
of  the  women,  that  Booth  was  not  far  off.  The  ferryman,  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Rollins,  was  sent  for,  and  being  influenced  no  doubt 
by  fear  of  compromising  himself  he  became  very  communicative. 
He  told  them  all  about  the  party  that  had  crossed  the  day  before, 
one  of  whom,  Captain  Jett,  he  knew  well ;  and  knowing  that  Jett 
had  been  paying  attention  to  a  Miss  Goldman,  the  daughter  of  a 
Bowling  Green  hotel  keeper,  he  suggested  that  he  would  most 
probably  be  found  there.  Colonel  Conger  pushed  on  with  his 
squad  of  cavalry,  commanded  by  Captain,  then  Lieutenant,  E.  P. 
Dougherty,  to  Bowling  Green,  passing  the  Garrett  farm  after 
dark. 

Arriving  at  Goldman's  Hotel,  he  inquired  of  Mrs.  Goldman  as 
to  the  men  that  were  in  the  house.  She  answered  him  that  her 
wounded  son  was  in  a  room  upstairs,  and  that  he  was  all  the 
man  there  was  there.  Colonel  Conger  then  required  her  to  lead 
the  way  upstairs,  telling  her  at  the  same  time  that  if  his  men 
were  fired  on  he  would  burn  the  building  and  carry  its  inmates 
to  Washington  as  prisoners.  As  he  entered  the  room  which  she 
showed  him,  up  one  flight  of  stairs,  Captain  Jett  jumped  out  of 
bed  half-dressed,  and  admitted  his  identity.  Colonel  Conger  then 
informed  him  that  he  was  cognizant  of  his  movements  for  the  last 
two  days,  and  proceeded  to  read  to  him  the  proclamation  of  the 
Secretary  of  War,  telling  him  when  he  had  done  reading  it  that 
if  he  did  not  tell  him  the  truth  he  would  hang  him  ;  but  that  if  he 
truly  gave  him  the  information  that  he  sought  he  would  protect 
him.  Jett  was  greatly  excited,  and  told  him  that  he  had  left 
Booth  at  the  Garrett  Farm,  three  miles  from  Port  Royal.  The 
Colonel  then  had  Jett's  horse  taken  from  the  stable,  making  Jett 
his  unwilling  guide  to  the  place  of  Booth's  concealment. 

Arriving  at  Garrett's,  the  cavalry  was  so  disposed  of  as  to 
prevent  any  one  from  escaping,  and  after  having  extorted,  by 


58  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

threats,  the  information  that  Booth  and  Herold  were  concealed  in 
the  barn,  it  was  at  once  surrounded.  They  were  ordered  to  come 
out  and  surrender  themselves,  which  Booth  refused  to  do.  After 
a  considerable  parley,  Herold  came  to  the  door  and  gave  himself 
up.  He  was  followed  by  the  maledictions  of  Booth,  who  accused 
him  of  cowardly  unfaithfulness  in  thus  deserting  him.  Booth  still 
refusing  to  surrender,  a  wisp  of  hay  was  fired  and  thrown  in  on 
the  hay  in  the  barn.  From  this  start  the  barn  was  soon  lighted 
up  with  the  flames  of  the  burning  hay.  Booth  was  known  to  be 
armed  and  desperate,  and  as  the  burning  hay  began  to  illuminate 
the  barn  he  was  seen,  carbine  in  hand,  peering  through  the  cracks, 
and  trying  to  get  an  aim.  He  had  before  offered  to  fight  the 
crowd  for  a  chance  of  his  life  if  the  Colonel  would  but  withdraw 
his  men  one  hundred  yards.  Being  answered  that  they  had  come 
to  capture  him,  not  to  fight,  he  was  preparing  to  sell  his  life 
as  dearly  as  possible.  At  this  moment,  Sergeant  Boston  torbett, 
of  the  Sixteenth  New  York  Cavalry,  fired  at  Booth  through  a 
crack  in  the  barn,  upon  his  own  responsibility,  and  struck  him  on 
the  back  part  of  his  head,  very  nearly  in  the  same  part  wrhere  his 
own  ball  had  struck  the  President,  only  a  little  lower  down,  and 
passing  obliquely  through  the  base  of  the  brain  and  upper  part  of 
the  spinal  cord ;  it  produced  instantly  almost  complete  paralysis 
of  every  muscle  in  his  body  below  the  seat  of  the  wound,  the 
nerves  of  organic  life  only  sufficing  to  keep  up  a  very  difficult  and 
imperfect  respiration,  and  a  feeble  action  of  the  heart  for  a  few 
hours,  when,  with  the  coming  of  the  morning  of  the  26th  of  April, 
1865,  twelve  days  after  the  commission  of  his  crime  and  com 
mencement  of  his  flight,  the  malefactor  expired.  He  was  per 
fectly  clear  in  his  mind,  but  could  not  swallow,  and  was  scarcely 
able  to  articulate  so  as  to  be  understood,  although  he  seemed 
anxious  to  talk.  He  requested  the  officer,  who  was  waiting  over 
him  and  trying  to  minister  to  him,  to  tell  his  mother  that  he  died 
for  his  country.  Thus  was  avenged,  not  the  loyal  North  alone, 
but  the  cause  of  justice,  the  cause  of  freedom,  the  cause  of 
humanity.  Amongst  the  articles  found  on  his  person  the  most 
important  as  bearing  on  the  conspiracy  in  which  he  was  engaged 
was  a  bill  of  exchange,  as  follows :  — 


UNRAVELLING    THE  PLOT.  59 

THE   ONTARIO    BANK, 

No.   1492.  MONTREAL  BRANCH. 

Stamp.  Exchange  for  £61  12$.  lod, 

MONTREAL,  27th  October,  1864. 

Sixty  days  after  sight  of  this  first  exchange  (second  and   third   of  same   tenor  and 
date  unpaid)  pay  to  the  order  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth    sixty-one  pounds,  twelve  shillings, 
and  ten  pence  sterling.     Value  received  and  charge  to  account  of  this  office. 
To  Messrs.  GLYNN,  MILLS  &  Co.,  London. 

[Signed]  H.  STANUS,  Manager. 

The  body  was  brought  to  Washington  and  identified  fully.  It 
was  buried,  for  the  time  secretly,  under  the  floor  of  the  old 
Capitol  Prison,  but  afterwards  was  given  up  to  his  friends. 

Major  Ruggles,  in  his  account  of  his  connection  with  Booth  in  his 
flight,  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  he  was  not  shot,  as  claimed,  by 
Sergeant  Corbett,  but  that  seeing  escape  hopeless,  and  knowing 
death  to  be  his  fate,  he  took  his  own  life,  holding  his  pistol  to  the 
back  of  his  head ;  and  in  support  of  this  opinion  refers  to  the  fact 
that  one  chamber  of  his  revolver  was  found  to  be  empty.  He  also 
advances  the  opinion  that  had  the  war  still  been  going  on,  and 
Booth  had  made  his  escape  into  the  confederate  lines,  the  rebel 
government  would  have  arrested  him  and  delivered  him  up  to  the 
United  States  authorities.  In  this  opinion  he  takes  a  charitable 
view  of  the  virtue  and  moral  integrity  of  the  Richmond  govern 
ment  which  I  shall  hereafter  show  is  not  warranted  by  the  facts 
and  evidence  in  the  case.  In  this  opinion  he  is  also  giving  that 
government  credit  for  a  degree  of  virtue  and  integrity  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  conduct  of  himself  and  his  companions,  who 
hurriedly  entered  into  a  friendly  compact  with  the  assassins,  know 
ing  them  to  be  such,  pledging  fidelity  and  assistance  to  the  full 
extent  of  their  ability  under  the  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
placed,  thus  morally  and  legally  making  themselves  accomplices 
after  the  fact.1 

1  The  evidence  before  the  Commission  left  Booth  and  Herold,  from  the  time  they  left 
Dr.  Mudd's  until  they  arrived  at  Port  Conway,  unaccounted  for.  I  am  indebted  to 
articles  in  the  Century  Magazine^  by  George  A.  Townsend,  Major  Ruggles,  and 
Lieutenant  Bainbridge,  for  the  ability  to  fill  up  this  interval,  and  to  General  Baker's 
"  History  of  the  Secret  Service,"  for  facts  connected  with  the  capture,  death,  and 
burial  of  Booth. —  AUTHOR. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY. 
Arrest  of  Spangler,  O '  LaugJilin,  Atzerodt,  Miidd,  and  Arnold. 

NOT  only  was  the  government  bending  every  energy  to  overtake 
and  capture  Booth  and  Herold,  but  also  to  find  out  who  were  their 
co-conspirators.  It  undertook  a  systematic  investigation  of  Booth's 
haunts,  associations,  habits,  and  employment  during  the  recent  past. 
Hotel  registers  were  overhauled,  liverymen  interviewed,  and  each 
clue  followed  up,  so  that  in  a  short  time  enough  was  known  to 
lead  to  the  arrest  of  Edward  Spangler,  Michael  O'Laughlin, 
George  A.  Atzerodt,  Samuel  Arnold,  and  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd, 
in  addition  to  those  heretofore  spoken  of  as  having  been  arrested. 
By  this  time  the  evidence  in  possession  of  the  government  made  it 
clear  that  what  had  occurred  was  but  a  partial  accomplishment 
of  a  great  conspiracy,  which  had  its  origin  with  the  agents  of  the 
rebel  government  in  Canada ;  and  that  its  execution  had  been 
entrusted  to  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt,  as  leaders, 
and  to  such  assistants  as  they  should  select  and  employ. 

It  was  soon  discovered  that  Booth's  intimate  associates,  with 
whom  he  held  private  confidential  intercourse,  were  John  H. 
Surratt,  and  his  mother,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  Lewis  Payne,  George 
A.  Atzerodt,  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  David  E.  Herold,  Samuel 
Arnold,  and  Michael  O'Laughlin;  and  that  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Surratt  was  the  headquarters  of  the  conspirators  in  Washington. 
Arnold  and  O'Laughlin  were  intimate  personal  friends  and  asso 
ciates  of  Booth  at  his  home  in  Baltimore.  Booth,  Payne,  and 
Atzerodt  were  frequent  callers  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  where 
they  were  always  made  welcome ;  their  business  was  always  of  a 
private,  confidential  nature,  and  was  with  John  Surratt  when  he 
60 


EDWARD  SPANGLER. 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  6 1 

was  at  home,  but  in  his  absence  was  with  Mrs.  Surratt  herself. 
Booth  had  every  privilege  granted  to  him  in  that  house,  his 
requests  for  a  private  conference  being  always  responded  to  by 
John  or  his  mother.  To  Booth  it  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  which  of  the  two  it  was.  In  tracing  his  movements 
the  last  few  months  preceeding  the  assassination,  it  soon  became 
evident  that  he  was  acting  under  the  impulse  of  a  purpose  that 
had  entire  possession  of  his  mind.  Having  undertaken  to  secure 
the  accomplishment  of  the  assassinations  planned  by  Davis  and 
his  Canada  Cabinet,  in  the  latter  part  of  October,  1 864,  he  was 
constantly  employed  in  making  his  preparations  for  the  fulfillment 
of  his  contract,  and  gave  no  time  or  thought,  apparently,  to  any 
thing  else.  He  entirely  abandoned  his  profession,  that  of  an 
actor,  and  lost  all  interest  in  the  stage.  He  no  longer  consorted 
with  those  of  his  profession  to  any  extent,  except  as  it  might  be 
in  preparation  for  the  work  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life, 
and  accepted,  instead,  the  fellowship  of  such  low-browed  scoun 
drels  as  Payne  and  Atzerodt  as  better  suited  to  his  purpose. 
They  became  mere  tools  in  his  hands,  sympathizing  with  him 
fully  in  his  intense  disloyalty,  but  being  actuated  at  the  same 
time  by  a  mercenary  motive,  the  evidence  justifying  the  con 
clusion  that  they  had  a  promise  of  a  large  pecuniary  reward. 
He  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  with  these  men,  studying  their 
characters,  and  schooling  them  in  the  parts  they  were  to  act. 
They  were  all  known  to  the  liverymen  of  the  city,  of  whom 
they  very  frequently  obtained  horses  to  ride  about  the  suburbs 
and  study  the  roads,  that  they  might  be  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  locality  when  the  time  should  come  for  them  to  make  their 
escape.  They  were  all  known,  also,  to  go  constantly  armed  with 
revolvers  and  bowie-knives  by  those  who  had  opportunities  of  see 
ing  them  together  in  their  private  intercourse.  They  boarded  at 
different  hotels,  and  frequently  changed  their  boarding-places,  but 
were  frequent  visitors  of  each  other  at  whatever  places  they  might 
be  stopping,  and  their  intercourse  was  always  observed  to  be  that 
of  privacy;  and  so  it  became  a  just  cause  for  suspicion  to  have 
been  an  intimate  companion  of  Booth,  and  finally  led  to  the  arrest 
of  them  all. 


62  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

With  regard  to  the  relations  existing  between  Booth  and  John 
H.  Surratt,  and  his  mother,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  the  evidence  showed 
that  they  would  always  retire  to  an  upstairs  room  whenever  a 
lengthy  conference  was  desired ;  but  that  they  frequently  held 
short  private  conferences  in  the  parlor,  when  it  could  be  done 
without  danger  of  interruption.  Booth's  right  to  thus  come  into 
the  house  and  demand  these  private  interviews  was  never  ques 
tioned,  but  granted  with  the  alacrity  due  to  a  common  purpose 
that  required  it. 

Foundation  for  the  Arrest  of  Mrs.  Surratt. 

The  agents  of  the  government,  in  pursuing  their  investiga 
tions,  obtained  evidence  that  Mrs.  Surratt's  house  had  been  the 
meeting-place  or  headquarters  of  the  conspirators,  and  that  she 
was  in  private,  confidential  intercourse  with  Booth.  One  of  the 
principal  witnesses  against  her  was  Louis  J.  Wiechmann,  who  had 
been  for  several  months  a  boarder  in  her  house,  and  whose  friendly 
relations  with  the  family  were  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  been  a 
fellow-student  with  John  H.  Surratt  at  St.  Charles  College,  in 
Maryland,  and  to  the  further  fact  that  they  were  co-religionists. 
Wiechmann  had  been,  during  all  this  time  that  he  had  been  a 
boarder  at  Mrs.  Surratt's,  employed  as  a  clerk  in  the  office  of 
General  Hoffman,  Commissary  General  of  Prisoners ;  and  from 
him  the  facts  above  alleged  were  learned.  Wiechmann  also  stated 
that  Mrs.  Surratt  sent  him  to  Booth  with  a  message  that  she 
wanted  to  see  him  on  private  business,  and  that  Booth  replied 
that  he  would  come  that  evening  or  as  soon  as  he  could,  and  that 
he  did  come  that  evening. 

On  the  Tuesday  previous  to  the  assassination,  Mrs.  Surratt 
requested  Wiechmann  to  drive  her  down  to  Surrattsville,  saying 
that  she  wanted  to  see  a  Mr.  Nothey  who  owed  her  some  money. 
Upon  his  consenting  to  do  so,  she  sent  him  to  the  National  Hotel 
to  see  Booth,  and  request  the  use  of  his  horse  and  buggy  for 
the  occasion.  Booth  said  he  had  sold  his  horse  and  buggy,  but 
handed  to  Wiechmann  ten  dollars  with  which  to  procure  one. 
Wiechmann  got  a  conveyance  and  drove  Mrs.  Surratt  to  Surratts 
ville  and  back.  As  they  were  on  their  way  down,  they  met 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  63 

Lloyd,  to  whom  Mrs.  Surratt  had  rented  her  farm  and  tavern  at 
Surrattsville.  Mrs.  Surratt  requested  Wieohmann  to  stop ;  and 
Lloyd,  stopping  at  the  same  time,  got  out  of  his  buggy  and  came 
close  to  Mrs.  Surratt,  who  conversed  with  him  in  so  low  a  tone 
that  Wiechmann  did  not  hear  what  was  said,  but  Lloyd  testified 
before  the  Commission  that  she  told  him  to  ''have  those  shoot 
ing-irons  where  they  would  be  convenient,  as  they  would  be 
wanted  before  long."  The  "shooting-irons"  referred  to  were  two 
carbines,  which,  with  ammunition,  a  monkey-wrench,  and  a  piece 
of  rope,  had  been  left  with  Lloyd  by  John  H.  Surratt,  Herold,  and 
Atzerodt  about  three  weeks  before,  with  the  request  that  he  should 
keep  them  hid,  Surratt  at  the  same  time  showing  him  a  safe 
place  to  secrete  them.  On  the  Friday  of  the  assassination,  Mrs. 
Surratt  requested  Wiechmann  to  drive  her  down  to  Surrattsville, 
alleging  that  she  was  going  to  see  Mr.  Nothey  again  on  the  same 
business  as  before.  She  gave  Wiechmann  money  to  procure  a  con 
veyance  and  he  drove  her  down.  Booth  was  with  her  in  the  parlor 
when  he  returned  with  the  conveyance,  and  when  Mrs.  Surratt  was 
about  getting  into  the  buggy,  she  requested  Wiechmann  to  wait  until 
she  went  and  got  Mr.  Booth's  things.  She  went  back  into  the 
parlor  and  returned  with  a  field-glass,  which  she  delivered  to  Lloyd. 
They  reached  Surrattsville  about  four  o'clock.  Mrs.  Surratt  then 
had  Wiechmann  sit  down  and  write  a  note  to  Mr.  Nothey  at  her 
dictation,  which  she  sent  to  him  by  a  Mr.  Bennett  F.  Gwin.  Lloyd 
had  gone  to  Marlboro  to  court,  and  Mrs.  Surratt  awaited  his  return 
which  was  not  until  about  half-past  six  oclock.  When  Lloyd 
returned,  he  drove  around  into  the  back  yard  to  unload  some 
fish  and  oysters  which  he  had  purchased,  and  Mrs.  Surratt,  who 
had  been  waiting  and  watching  for  his  return,  seized  this  oppor 
tunity  to  see  him  privately,  when  she  told  him,  as  Lloyd  testified 
before  the  Commission,  to  have  the  carbines  ready,  as  they  would 
be  called  for  that  night,  and  also  two  bottles  of  whiskey.  Then 
going  with  him  into  the  house,  she  gave  him  the  field-glass. 

She  was  now  ready  to  return,  and  expressed  anxiety  to  Wiech 
mann  to  reach  home  before  nine  o'clock,  saying  that  she  had  an 
engagement  for  that  hour.  She  reached  her  home  just  before  nine, 
and  a  few  moments  later  Wiechmann,  from  his  place  at  the  table 


64  ASSASSWATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

in  the  dining-room  below,  heard  the  door-bell  ring,  and  some 
one  enter  the  parlor.  The  interview  was  very  short — just  long 
enough  for  Mrs.  Surratt  to  say  that  all  was  right  —  when 
Wiechmann  heard  retreating  footsteps,  but  did  not  know  who 
the  visitor  was.  In  view,  however,  of  all  the  foregoing,  we  can 
not  resist  the  conclusion  that  Booth  was  the  person,  and  that 
this  was  their  last  interview.  Mrs.  Surratt  was  able  to  produce 
the  letter  of  Mr.  Calvert  which  she  claimed  required  her  to  go  to 
Surrattsville  that  day  to  see  Mr.  Nothey,  but  she  had  no  appoint 
ment  to  meet  him  there,  did  not  see  him,  and  could  just  as  well 
have  written  to  him  from  her  home  in  Washington.  This  excuse 
for  her  visit  was  a  mere  fabrication.  Her  real  business  was  with 
Lloyd,  and  she  was  not  ready  to  return  until  after  she  had  had  an 
interview  with  him,  and  delivered  her  message  from  Booth,  and 
the  field-glass  which  he  had  given  her.  It  is  evident  that  her 
show  of  private  business  was  gotten  up  as  a  cover  to  her  real 
errand. 

Again,  Payne  had  visited  the  Surratt  house  on  several  occasions. 
The  first  time  he  came  he  called  for  John  H.  Surratt,  and  on  being 
told  by  Wiechmann  that  John  was  not  at  home,  he  requested  to 
see  Mrs.  Surratt.  He  passed  this  time  under  the  alias  of  Wood,, 
and  was  received  by  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  kept  over  night,  when  he- 
departed  for  Baltimore.  About  three  weeks  later,  say  about  the 
2Oth  of  March  (as  his  first  visit  was  about  the  1st  of  March),  he 
made  his  second  visit,  passing  under  the  name  of  Payne,  and 
remained  three  days.  It  was  during  this  visit  that  the  episode 
already  referred  to  as  having  in  all  probability  been  an  attempt  to 
murder  the  President  on  his  visit  to  the  Soldier's  Home,  occurred, 
and  from  which  Surratt,  Booth,  and  Payne  returned  under  such 
excitement  and  evident  disappointment. 

To  such  members  of  the  family  as  had  not  been  initiated  into  the 
plot,  this  man  of  many  aliases  —  Wood,  Payne,  and  Powell  — 
passed  as  a  Baptist  preacher.  He  said  that  he  had  taken  the  oath 
whilst  in  Baltimore,  and  intended  henceforth  to  be  a  good,  loyal 
man.  When  this  man  came  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Surratt  on  the 
night  of  the  i/th  of  April,  as  heretofore  related,  and  was  placed 
under  arrest,  Mrs.  Surratt,  who  had  also  upon  a  knowledge  of  the 


J 


LEWIS  PAYNE. 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  65 

facts  just  recited  been  arrested  a  few  minutes  before,  when  she  was 
called  into  the  hall  and  confronted  with  Payne,  having  heard  his 
story  as  to  why  he  had  come  and  what  he  had  come  for,  holding 
up  her  hands  exclaimed,  "  Before  God,  I  do  not  know  this  man, 
and  never  saw  him  before."  He  had  been  a  guest  at  her  table 
for  three  days  only  a  few  days  previous  to  this,  and  was  a  man  of 
such  a  marked  personality  that  having  seen  him  once  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  have  failed  to  recognize  him  on  seeing 
him  again,  even  though  he  might  have  been  partially  disguised. 
With  a  woman's  intuitive  perception,  she  saw  the  compromising 
effect  that  his  visit  at  that  time  of  night,  and  under  such  circum 
stances,  was  calculated  to  have  on  her  own  case,  and  so  felt  the 
necessity  of  this  solemn  disavowal  of  any  knowledge  of  him. 
Before  the  government  felt  justified  in  arresting  this  woman,  only, 
indeed,  two  or  three  hours  after  the  assassination,  it  being  known 
that  Booth  was  the  assassin,  and  that  he  and  John  H.  Surratt 
were  intimate  friends,  the  detectives  went  to  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Surratt  to  see  whom  they  could  find  there.  WThen  they  rang  the 
bell  Wiechmann,  who  occupied  an  upstairs  room,  opened  the 
window  and  inquired  what  they  wanted.  Upon  their  demanding 
admittance,  stating  that  they  had  been  sent  to  that  house  to  see 
whom  they  could  find  in  it,  Wiechmann  went  and  rapped  at  Mrs. 
Surratt's  door,  informing  her  who  it  was  that  demanded  admit 
tance,  and  asking  her  if  he  should  let  them  in,  when  she  replied, 
"  Yes,  let  them  in ;  I  have  been  expecting  them."  Now,  why 
should  Mrs.  Surratt  at  that  hour,  about  three  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  the  I5th,  and  only  three  or  four  hours  after  the 
assassination,  have  been  expecting  a  visit  from  the  detectives?  A 
guilty  conscience  is  its  own  accuser. 

As  Wiechmann  and  Lloyd  were  the  principal  witnesses  against 
Mrs.  Surratt,  and  their  evidence  so  conclusively  established  her 
guilt,  her  counsel  made  an  effort  to  discredit  their  testimony,  but 
utterly  failed  to  do  so.  Wiechmann  was  a  young  man  who  estab 
lished  a  good  character  for  veracity  and  general  moral  deport 
ment  by  witnesses  who  had  been  intimately  associated  with  him 
for  months  in  General  Hoffman's  department.  His  manner  was 
that  of  a  man  who  was  deeply  affected  by  the  fact  that  he  found 
5 


66  ASSASS/XAT1OA'   OF  LINCOLN. 

himself  in  a  situation  in  which  his  duty  to  his  God  and  his  country 
required  him  to  state  facts  that  had  been  thrust  upon  him,  and 
that  were  now  found  to  be  so  damaging  to  those  with  whom  he 
had  been  associating  and  whom  he  had  regarded  as  friends.  The 
attempt  made  by  counsel  for  the  defense  in  their  arguments  to 
break  the  force  of  his  testimony  by  throwing  out  the  unfounded 
insinuation  that  he  probably  knew  of  the  existence  of  the  conspi 
racy,  was  done  for  the  purpose  of  engendering  a  doubt  of  the 
simple  truth  of  his  utterances  which  were  corroborated  by  other 
testimony  than  his  own,  and  of  which  he  could  have  had  no 
previous  knowledge.  Wiechmann's  testimony,  taking  into  con 
sideration  the  lies  told  to  him  and  the  deceptions  practiced  upon 
him  for  nearly  four  months,  is  in  itself  absolute  proof  of  his 
integrity  and  of  his  innocence.  In  the  words  of  Judge  Bingham 
in  all  that  dread  issue,  "  There  was  not  a  breath  of  suspicion 
found  against  his  character,  nor  was  a  single  fact  to  which  he  testified 
contradicted.  The  defense  tried  to  kill  him  off  with  lies  and 
insinuations,  but  they  could  not  and  did  not  do  it."  Wiechmann 
admitted  that  he  had  been  puzzled  to  account  for  some  of  these 
occurrences.  He  could  not  understand  why  such  persons  as 
Payne  and  Atzerodt  should  be  received  and  enjoy  the  privileges 
accorded  to  them  by  Mrs.  Surratt  and  her  son ;  but  particularly 
he  had  had  his  suspicions  aroused  by  the  conduct  of  Surratt, 
Payne,  and  Booth  upon  their  return  from  their  ride  as  heretofore 
recited.  He  had  related  this  occurrence  to  Captain  Gleason,  an 
officer  with  whom  he  was  associated  in  his  daily  work.  He 
referred  to  a  report  or  rumor,  which  had  found  its  way  into  the 
papers,  of  a  plot  to  capture  the  President,  and  asked  the  Captain 
if  he  thought  it  could  be  possible  that  this  could  have  been  the 
object  of  their  expedition.  Wiechmann's  character  and  actions 
in  the  matter  could  not  be  discredited  by  insinuations  that  had  no 
evidence  to  rest  on  for  their  support. 

Lloyd  had  rented  Mrs.  Surratt's  farm  and  tavern  at  Surrattsville, 
and  so  was  her  tenant.  He  was  a  man  of  intemperate  habits,  and 
there  was,  I  think,  taking  all  things  into  consideration,  strong 
reason  to  conclude  that  he  had  been  entrusted  with  the  secret  of 
the  plot ;  but  of  this  there  was  no  direct  proof,  and  much  less  of 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  6/ 

his  having  been  any  further  a  party  to  the  conspiracy.  Even  admit 
ting  that  he  had  this  guilty  knowledge,  it  does  not  disqualify  him 
for  telling  the  truth  as  to  what  occurred  at  the  private  interviews 
referred  to  between  himself  and  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  that  these 
private  interviews  did  take  place  under  the  circumstances  already 
related  we  have  the  positive  testimony  of  Wiechmann.  Lloyd's 
testimony  was  drawn  out  of  him  by  questions  suggested  by  what 
Wiechmann  had  previously  stated  before  the  Commission.  The 
defense  failed  entirely  to  prove  that  he  was  a  man  not  to  be 
believed  upon  his  oath. 

They  endeavored  to  break  the  force  of  the  testimony  of  Major 
Smith  in  regard  to  Mrs.  Surratt  solemnly  disclaiming  any  knowl 
edge  of  Payne  by  claiming  that  her  eyesight  was  very  defective, 
but  failed  to  establish  any  evidence  of  infirmity  of  sight  beyond 
what  was  common  to  a  person  of  her  age  of  forty-five  years. 

The  evidence  of  Major  Smith  was  that  the  hall  was  well  lighted 
when  she  was  confronted  with  Payne,  and  her  haste  to  disavow 
any  knowledge  of  him  with  such  unnecessary  solemnity  was  itself 
evidence  of  guilt.  Her  eminent  volunteer  counsel,  Hon.  Reverdy 
Johnson,  at  that  time  a  United  States  senator  from  Maryland,  did 
not  attempt  to  assail  the  testimony  against  her  or  to  make  any 
reference  whatever  to  her  case ;  but  confined  himself  to  an 
argument  against  the  constitutionality  of  her  trial  by  a  military 
commission  and  against  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court.  In  view  of 
all  the  facts  above  narrated,  all  of  which  were  proven  by  the 
witnesses  brought  before  the  Commission  by  the  government,  the 
author  thinks  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  candid  mind  to 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  Mn..  Surratt  was  fully  informed 
of  the  purposes  of  Booth  and  her  son,  and  gave  to  them  her 
hearty  approval  and  earnest  co-operation.  We  have  now  pre 
sented  in  narrative  form  the  evidence  on  which  Mrs.  Surratt  was 
found  guilty  and  sentenced  by  the  Commission  to  be  hung.  Her 
case  was  evidently  one  of  those  deplorable  cases,  of  which  the 
rebellion  furnished  so  many  examples,  of  a  woman  so  entirely 
under  the  influence  of  disloyalty  to  her  government  and  so 
desirous  of  its  overthrow,  that  she  was  ready  to  resort  to  any 
means  whatever  to  accomplish  that  purpose,  and  so  entered  heart 


68  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

and  soul  into  the  schemes  of  Booth  and  her  son,  hoping  thereby 
to  serve  the  cause  of  the  confederacy. 

Arrest  of  Atzerodt. 

George  A.  Atzerodt  had  undertaken  for  his  part  the  assassina 
tion  of  Vice-President  Johnson.  He  was  found  to  have  been  a 
frequent  visitor  at  the  Surratt  house,  and  a  boon  companion  of 
Payne,  Surratt,  and  Booth.  It  was  found  that  he  had  taken  a 
room  at  the  Kirkwood  House  where  the  Vice-President  was  stop 
ping  at  the  time.  He  had  been  assigned  to  room  number  126, 
on  the  next  floor  above  that  on  which  was  the  room  occupied  by 
the  Vice-President.  He  had  been  stopping  at  the  Pennsylvania 
House  from  the  2^th  of  March  until  the  I2th  of  April,  and  took 
this  room  at  the  Kirkwood  House  on  the  morning  of  the  I4th  of 
April,  paying  in  advance  for  one  day.  On  the  I2th  of  April  he 
visited  this  house,  and  meeting  Col.  W.  R.  Nevins  in  the  passage 
leading  to  the  dining-room,  he  asked  him  if  he  knew  where  Vice- 
President  Johnson  was.  Nevins  showed  him  the  Vice-President's 
room,  but  remarked,  "He  is  now- at  dinner,"  pointing  him  out  to 
Atzerodt  as  he  sat  at  the  table.  Atzerodt  did  not  enter  the 
dining-room,  but  simply  looked  in  at  the  Vice-President.  It  was 
ascertained  that  Atzerodt  had  not  occupied  his  room  on  the  night 
of  the  1 4th,  and  when  the  detectives  who  were  on  his  track  came 
to  the  Kirkwood  House  on  the  afternoon  of  the  I5th,  it  was 
found  locked,  and  the  door  had  to  be  forced.  Mr.  Lee,  the 
officer  in  pursuit  of  him,  found  in  his  room,  upon  gaining  admis 
sion,  a  black  coat  hanging  against  the  wall ;  underneath  the 
pillow  or  bolster  a  revolver  loaded  and  capped,  and  between  the 
sheets  and  mattress  a  large  bowie-knife.  In  the  pockets  of  the 
coat  were  found  a  handkerchief  marked  "  Mary  R.  Booth,"  another 
marked  "  F.  M.,"  or  4<  F.  A.  Nelson,"  and  another  marked  "  H,"  in 
one  corner ;  also  a  bank-book  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  showing  a  credit 
of  four  hundred  and  fifty-five  dollars  with  the  Ontario  Bank  of 
Montreal,  and  a  map  of  Virginia.  On  the  corner  of  the  bank 
book  was  written  "  J.  W.  Booth,  53."  On  the  inside  of  the  book, 
"  Mr.  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  in  account  with  the  Ontario  Bank  of 
Montreal,  Canada,  1864,  October  27;  by  deposit  Cr.  $455.'* 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  69 

This  coat  evidently  belonged  to  Booth,  and  its  being  thus  found 
in  Atzerodt's  room  showed  that  Booth  had  visited  him  there  dur 
ing  the  day ;  and  that  he  had  spent  some  time  with  him  schooling 
him  in  his  part  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  had  taken  off  his 
light  overcoat  and  hung  it  up  against  the  wall,  and  had  evidently 
become  so  much  absorbed  in  mind  with  the  purpose  of  his  visit 
that  he  forgot  to  take  his  coat  when  he  left.  The  revolver  loaded 
and  capped,  and  the  huge  bowie-knife  hidden  in  the  bed,  serve  to 
explain  the  nature  of  the  interview  between  Booth  and  Atzerodt, 
and  the  purpose  of  death  to  the  Vice-President  on  the  part  of  the 
former,  and  in  which  purpose  at  that  time  Atzerodt  no  doubt 
fully  concurred.  During  the  stay  of  Atzerodt  at  the  Pennsylvania 
House  he  was  frequently  called  on  by  Booth,  and  they  were  at 
pains  always  to  hold  their  interviews  in  private. 

Atzerodt's  whereabouts  from  the  I2th  to  the  izj-th  of  April  are 
not  accounted  for.  On  the  I4th,  after  having  taken  his  room  at 
the  Kirkwood,  we  next  find  him  at  a  livery-stable  on  Eighth  and 
E  streets,  where  he  procured  a  bay  mare,  paying  five  dollars  for 
her  hire  for  the  afternoon.  He  took  her  to  Naylor's  stable  and 
had  her  put  up.  Here  he  was  accompanied  by  Herold.  It  was 
about  one  o'clock  P.M.  when  he  had  his  mare  put  up.  He  left  and 
did  not  return  until  about  seven  P.M.  On  his  return  he  ordered  his 
mare  to  be  saddled,  and  requested  that  she  should  be  left  stand 
ing  with  the  saddle  and  bridle  on  until  ten  o'clock,  when  he  would 
call  for  her.  He  returned  at  ten,  got  his  mare,  and  left.  He 
returned  the  mare  to  the  stable  on  Eighth  and  E  streets  shortly 
after  the  assassination  of  the  President,  at  about  eleven  o'clock. 

After  returning  the  mare,  he  boarded  a  navy-yard  car  at  Sixth 
Street,  and  rode  down  as  far  as  the  navy-yard.  Finding  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Briscoe  on  the  car,  with  whom  he  was  acquainted, 
he  asked  him  to  let  him  sleep  with  him  in  his  store.  Being  refused, 
he  urged  his  request,  and  seemed  excited.  Briscoe  asked  him  if 
he  had  heard  the  news.  He  replied  that  he  had. 

Not  getting  permission  to  lodge  with  Briscoe,  he  said  he  would 
return  to  the  Pennsylvania  House,  which  he  did,  arriving  there 
on  horseback  about  twelve  M.  or  one  o'clock  A.M.  He  asked 
the  colored  boy  in  waiting  at  the  house  to  hold  his  horse  whilst 


70  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

he  went  into  the  bar.  He  then  mounted  his  horse  and  left,  return 
ing  again  at  about  two  o'clock  on  foot,  in  company  with  another 
man.  They  paid  for  their  lodging  and  retired.  Atzerodt,  on  being 
requested  by  the  clerk  to  register  before  retiring  to  his  room,  hesi 
tated,  and  did  it  with  manifest  reluctance.  These  parties  arose 
very  early  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th,  and  left.  At  about 
eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th,  we  find  Atzerodt  in 
Georgetown  trying  to  sell  his  watch  to  a  man  with  whom  he  was 
somewhat  acquainted  ;  but  not  being  able  to  do  so,  he  pawned 
his  pistol  for  ten  dollars,  saying  he  was  going  to  the  country  and 
would  come,  or  send,  and  redeem  it  the  next  week.  He  was 
followed  and  arrested  in  Montgomery  County,  Maryland,  on  the 
2Oth  of  April. 

He  ate  his  dinner  on  the  i6th  at  the  house  of  Mr  Hezekiah 
Metz.  There  were  two  or  three  other  persons  at  the  table  with 
him,  and  all  were  anxious  to  hear  the  news  from  Washington. 
He  was  asked  whether  it  was  true,  as  had  been  reported  in  that 
neighborhood,  that  General  Grant  had  been  killed.  Atzerodt, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  Metz,  replied  that  "  if  the  man  who 
was  to  follow  him  had  done  so  it  was  likely  to  be  true."  There  was 
some  conflict  of  statement,  however,  between  Metz  and  the  other 
two  parties  who  were  at  the  table,  and  who  were  used  as  witnesses 
for  the  defense.  These  thought  he  said  if  it  were  so,  it  was  likely 
to  have  been  done  by  some  one  who  got  on  the  train  with  him. 
There  are  good  reasons,  however,  for  concluding  that  Metz  gave 
his  real  answer. 

Atzerodt  was  known  in  that  neighborhood  as  Andrew  Atwood. 
From  Metz's  he  went  to  the  house  of  his  cousin,  Hartman 
Richter,  near  the  little  village  of  Germantown,  and  remained 
there  until  he  was  arrested  by  Sergeant  L.  W.  Grimmell  on  the  night 
of  the  2Oth.  Richter  denied  that  there  was  anybody  in  his  house 
when  inquired  of  by  the  Sergeant.  When  told  by  the  Sergeant 
that  he  would  have  to  search  the  house,  he  admitted  that  his  cousin 
was  upstairs  in  bed.  His  wife  then  spoke  up,  saying,  "  there  were 
three  men  there  for  that  matter."  Atzerodt  was  brought  to  Wash 
ington  and  held  as  a  prisoner  for  trial,  as  a  party  to  the  conspiracy. 
There  is  no  doubt  from  the  evidence  presented,  that  he  was  not 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  7 1 

only  a  party  to  the  conspiracy,  but  also  that  Booth  had  arranged 
with  him  and  relied  on  him  to  assassinate  the  Vice-President.  For 
this  purpose  he  had  removed  him  from  the  Pennsylvania  to  the 
Kirkwood  House,  where  the  Vice-President  had  rooms,  and  was 
boarding-.  This  change  had  been  made  on  the  morning  of  the 

o  o  o 

1 4th,  and  Booth  had  been  there  during  the  day  to  see  that  all 
things  were  properly  arranged.  Atzerodt's  revolver  was  found 
hidden  away  in  his  bed,  loaded,  capped,  and  ready  for  use.  His 
bowie-knife  also  was  found  secreted  in  his  bed ;  and  yet  there 
is  no  evidence  that  he  was  in  his  room,  or  even  in  the  house  dur 
ing  the  evening  or  night.  In  his  defense  his  counsel  set  up  the 
plea,  and  proved  it,  that  he  was  incapable  of  committing  such  a 
crime,  being  constitutionally  a  coward.  He  was  a  low-browed, 
vulgar  vagabond,  fond  of  whiskey,  tobacco,  and  vicious  company; 
a  cowardly  braggart,  covering  up  his  cowardice  by  a  great  pre 
tense  of  bravery  when  the  battle  was  not  on  ;  low  enough  in  moral 
tone  to  do  any  wicked  thing,  but  without  physical  courage  to 
face  the  danger  connected  with  what  he  had  engaged  to  do. 
Booth  had  mistaken  his  man ;  but  being  a  member  of  the  con 
spiracy,  he  was  equally  guilty  with  Booth. 

Arrest  of  Sp angler. 

On  the  strength  of  the  facts  incidentally  presented  in  the  forego 
ing  narrative,  Edward  Spangler  was  taken  into  military  custody,  and 
held  as  a  prisoner  for  trial.  The  capture  of  Herold  has  already 
been  given.  All  of  these  prisoners  were  held  in  military  custody, 
and  under  such  precautions  as  would  have  rendered  any  attempt 
at  rescue  or  escape  the  height  of  folly. 

In  Booth's  trunk  a  letter  was  found  from  Samuel  Arnold  to 
Booth,  dated  at  Hookstown,  Md.,  March  2/th,  1865.  This  letter 
was  signed  simply  "Sam,"  but  was  proved  to  be  in  Arnold's  hand 
writing,  and  led  not  only  to  his  own  arrest,  but  also  to  that  of  his 
friend  and  fellow  conspirator,  Michael  O'Laughlin.  Arnold  had 
evidently  fallen  into  a  hesitating  frame  of  mind.  I  feel  that  I  can 
not  do  better  than  to  give  this  letter  entire.  It  is  as  follows :  — 


72  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

HOOKSTOWN,  BALTIMORE  Co.,  March  27,  1865. 

DEAR  JOHN':  — Was  business  so  important  that  you  could  not  remain  in  Baltimore 
until  I  saw  you?  I  came  in  as  soon  as  I  could,  but  found  you  had  gone  to  Washington. 
I  called  also  on  Mike,  but  learned  from  his  mother  that  he  had  gone  out  with  you  and 
had  not  returned.  I  concluded,  therefore,  that  he  had  gone  with  you.  How  inconsid 
erate  you  have  been  !  When  I  left  you,  you  stated  you  would  not  meet  me  in  a  month 
or  so.  Therefore,  I  made  application  for  employment,  an  answer  to  which  I  shall  receive 
during  the  week.  I  told  my  parents  I  had  ceased  with  you.  Can  I,  then,  under  exist 
ing  circumstances,  come  as  you  request?  You  know  full  well  that  the  government 
suspicions  something  is  going  on  there;  therefore  the  undertaking  is  becoming  more 
complicated.  Why  not,  for  the  present,  desist,  for  various  reasons  which,  if  you  look 
into,  you  can  readily  see,  without  my  making  any  mention  thereof.  You,  nor  any  one, 
can  censure  me  for  my  present  course.  You  have  been  its  cause,  for  how  can  I  come 
now  after  telling  them  I  had  left  you?  Suspicion  rests  upon  me  now  from  my  whole 
family  and  even  parties  in  the  country.  I  will  be  compelled  to  leave  home  any  how, 
and  how  soon  I  care  not.  None,  no,  not  one,  were  more  in  favor  of  the  enterprise  than 
myself,  and  to-day  would  be  there  had  you  not  done  as  you  have :  by  this  I  mean,  man 
ner  of  proceeding.  I  am,  as  you  well  know,  in  need.  I  am,  as  you  may  say,  in  rags; 
whereas  to-day  I  ought  to  be  well  clothed.  I  do  not  feel  right  stalking  about  with 
means,  and  more  from  appearances  a  beggar.  I  feel  my  dependence:  but  even  all  this 
would  be  and  was  forgotten,  for  I  was  one  with  you.  Time  more  propitious  will  arrive 
yet.  Do  not  act  rashly  or  in  haste.  I  prefer  your  first  query:  go  and  see  how  it  will 

be  taken  at  R d,  and  e'er  long  I  shall  be  better  prepared  to  again  be  with  you.     I 

dislike  writing,  —  wrould  sooner  verbally  make  known  my  views, — yet  your  non-writing 
causes  me  thus  to  proceed.  Do  not  in  anger  peruse  this.  Weigh  all  I  have  said,  and, 
as  a  rational  man  and  a  friend,  you  cannot  censure  or  upbraid  my  conduct.  I  sincerely 
trust  this,  or  aught  else  that  shall  or  may  occur,  will  never  be  an  obstacle  to  obliterate 
our  former  friendship  and  attachment.  Write  me  to  Baltimore,  as  I  expect  to  be  in 
about  Wednesday  or  Thursday,  or,  if  you  can  possibly  come  on,  I  will  Tuesday  meet 

you  in  Baltimore  at  B .     Ever  I  subscribe  myself, 

Your  friend, 

SAM. 

Arnold  got  employment  at  Fortress  Monroe,  and  was  there  at  the 
time  of  the  assassination ;  but  the  finding  of  the  above  letter  in 
Booth's  trunk,  as  also  other  evidence  constantly  turning  up  in  the 
course  of  the  investigations  being  made,  identifying  him  with  the 
conspiracy,  led  to  his  arrest  on  the  i/th  of  April  at  Fortress  Monroe. 
Arnold,  when  arrested,  made  a  partial  confession,  relating  the  cir 
cumstances  of  a  meeting  of  some  of  the  conspirators  held  at  the 
Lichau  House  in  Washington  about  three  weeks  previous  to  his 
going  to  Fortress  Monroe. 

This  meeting  must  have  occurred  within  two  or  three  days  before 
the  writing  of  the  above  letter,  immediately  before  Surratt's  visit 
to  Richmond,  and  was  attended  by  Booth,  Surratt,  O'Laughlin, 


SAMUEL  ARNOLD 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  73 

Atzerodt,  Arnold,  a  man  with  the  alias  of  Moseby,  and  another 
whose  name  he  could  not  recollect.  He  denied  that  he  had  ever 
corresponded  with  Booth,  but  on  being  informed  of  the  letter 
found  in  Booth's  trunk  he  admitted  that  he  wrote  it.  He  also 
stated  that  Booth  had  letters  of  introduction  to  Dr.  Mudd  and 
Dr.  Queen,  but  said  he  did  not  know  from  whom  Booth  got 
them.  He  claimed  that  an  angry  discussion  took  place  at  the 
meeting  referred  to.  He  said  he  told  Booth  then  that  if  the 
thing  did  not  take  place  that  week  he  would  withdraw.  Booth 
got  angry  at  that,  and  said  he  ought  to  be  shot  for  talking  in 
that  way.  He  said  that  he  replied  to  Booth  that  two  could 
play  at  that  game ;  and  that  he  withdrew  from  the  conspiracy  at 
that  time,  and  occupied  his  position  at  Fortress  Monroe  on  the 
1st  of  April.  It  is  evident,  I  think,  that  as  he  began  to  contem 
plate  the  hazards  of  the  enterprise,  its  dangers  began  to  be  more 
and  more  apparent  to  him.  His  heart  failed  him,  and  he  was 
anxious  for  an  excuse  to  withdraw  from  it,  but  had  not  the  courage 
to  peremptorily  do  so.  This  is  the  interpretation  I  put  upon  the 
above  letter  —  of  the  altercation  between  him  and  Booth,  and  of  his 
going  to  Fortress  Monroe. 

There  is  also  apparent  in  the  letter  a  shade  of  disappointment 
and  dissatisfaction  in  regard  to  pecuniary  matters,  implying  that 
promised  reward  had  been  withheld  by  Booth.  Early  in  Septem 
ber,  whilst  at  a  grain  threshing,  Arnold  received  a  letter  contain 
ing  a  fifty-dollar  bill.  Reading  the  letter  and  showing  it  with  the 
money  to  a  companion,  he  remarked  that  "  he  was  flush."  He 
handed, the  letter  to  his  friend  to  read,  but  he,  after  trying  to  read 
a  few  lines,  and  finding  that  he  could  not  understand  it  on  account 
of  its  ambiguity,  handed  it  back  to  Arnold,  asking  him  what  it 
meant.  Arnold  replied  that  something  big  would  be  seen  in  the 
papers  one  of  these  days.  This  was  no  doubt  a  retainer's  fee,  or 
in  other  words,  an  advance  payment  from  Booth.  The  rather 
complaining  tone  of  Arnold's  letter,  hinting  at  pecuniary  embar 
rassment,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  Booth's  promises  of  pecu 
niary  reward  had  been  large,  whilst  his  fulfillment  had  been  far 
from  satisfactory. 

This,  amongst  other  considerations  to  be  named,  had  evidently 


74  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

cooled   Arnold's   ardor  in   the   prosecution   of   the  plot,    and  was 
the  cause  of  his  disposition  to  withdraw  from  it. 

The  probabilities  are  that  his  parents  and  friends  suspecting  that 
his  intimacy  with  Booth  foreboded  evil,  and  probably  suspecting 
something  of  his  purpose,  had  so  earnestly  remonstrated  with  him  as 
to  cause  him  to  stagger  or  falter  in  his  purpose,  and  made  him 
anxious  for  an  excuse  for  breaking  with  Booth.  He  perhaps 
began  to  regard  Booth's  plan  as  quixotic  and  impracticable,  full 
of  hazard,  and  not  likely  to  succeed.  In  fact,  he  stated  that  he 
so  told  Booth  at  this  meeting.  He  was  evidently  restive,  and 
thought  it  had  been  put  off  too  long  to  effect  the  end  contem 
plated.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  from  any  awakening  of 
his  moral  nature  that  he  faltered,  neither  from  cowardice  that  he 
weakened ;  and  so  he  failed  to  purge  himself  of  complicity  in 
Booth's  guilt.  But  there  was  sufficient  evidence  of  his  desire  to 
withdraw  from  any  part  in  the  execution  of  Booth's  present  pur 
poses  to  extenuate  his  guilt  in  a  measure,  at  least,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  Commission. 

Arrest  of  O'Laughlin. 

Arnold's  letter  to  Booth  on  the  2/th  of  March,  which  was 
found  in  Booth's  trunk,  together  with  evidence  gathered  up  on 
every  hand '  as  the  investigation  proceeded,  led  to  the  arrest  of 
Michael  O'Laughlin  at  the  house  of  his  brother-in-law,  in  Balti 
more,  on  Monday,  the  I7th  of  April,  the  same  day  on  which 
Arnold  was  arrested.  When  arrested  he  seemed  to  understand 
what  it  was  for,  not  asking  any  questions  about  it.  He  had  gone 
to  Washington  on  the  I3th  and  remained  until  Saturday,  the  I5th. 
On  returning  to  Baltimore  on  Saturday  night,  he  was  met  at  the 
depot  by  his  brother-in-law,  who  told  him  that  he  had  been  in 
quired  for  by  detectives  that  evening.  Being  advised  by  the  friend 
who  had  accompanied  him  to  Washington  and  back  to  remain  at  his 
home,  he  said  he  would  not  be  arrested  at  home,  as  it  would  kill 
his  mother.  Why  was  he  expecting  to  be  arrested  ?  A  man  inno 
cent  of  crime  never  fears  or  expects  arrest.  He  went  to  the  house 
of  his  brother-in-law  and  quietly  awaited  the  issue.  He  even 
requested  his  brother-in-law  to  inform  the  officer  of  his  where 
abouts,  thus  seeming  to  court  arrest. 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  75 

He  had  carefully  thought  the  thing  over,  and  concluded  that 
the  government  would  not  be  able  to  fix  guilt  upon  him,  and  so 
he  thought  to  have  the  benefit  of  a  seeming  willingness  to  be 
arrested,  as  presumptive  proof  of  his  innocence.  He  had  gone 
to  Washington  on  the  I3th  with  three  companions,  ostensibly  to 
see  the  parade  and  illumination  in  commemoration  of  the  sur 
render  of  Lee's  army,  and  to  "  have  a  good  time,"  as  his  com 
panions  expressed  it  in  their  evidence  in  his  behalf  on  his 
defense. 

He  kept  with  these  companions  in  the  rounds  of  their  drunken 
carousal  and  debaucheries  enough  to  blind  them  as  to  the  real 
object  of  his  visit.  They  were  drinking  freely  during  the  Thursday 
and  Friday  of  their  stay,  and  were  evidently  unable  to  give  a  con 
nected  and  reliable  account  of  O'Laughlin's  whereabouts  during 
the  whole  of  the  time.  They  thought  he  spent  most  of  the  time 
in  company  with  one  or  the  other  of  them ;  but  they  admitted 
that  he  had  had  a  long  interview  with  Booth  at  his  room  at  the 
National  Hotel  on  Friday,  the  I4th.  It  was  positively  proven, 
however,  that  he  was  at  the  house  of  Secretary  Stanton  on  the 
occasion  of  the  reception  given  to  General  Grant  on  the  night  of 
the  1 3th;  that  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  state  of  partial  intoxication, 
and  pushed  himself  through  the  crowd  into  the  hall  inquiring  for 
General  Grant,  saying  he  wanted  to  see  him.  He  was  told  by  the 
Secretary's  son  that  that  was  no  occasion  for  him  to  see  him,  and 
to  step  out  onto  the  pavement  where  the  carriage  stopped,  and  he 
could  see  him.  He  stood  for  some  time  in  the  hall  looking  in 

o 

through  the  door  at  the  General.  He  also  said  he  wanted  to  see 
Stanton,  and  being  asked  if  it  was  the  Secretary  he  wished  to  see, 
he  said  it  was.  The  Secretary  was  pointed  out  to  him,  but  he  did 
not  go  to  him.  His  manner  was  so  impertinently  obtrusive  and 
rude  that  he  was  finally  requested  to  leave,  and  was  escorted  out 
of  the  house  by  the  son  of  the  Secretary.  Mr.  Stanton  at  first 
thought  him  to  be  intoxicated,  but  upon  conversing  with  him 
concluded  he  was  not.  It  would  appear  from  all  this  that  the  part 
Booth  had  assigned  to  him  was  the  assassination  of  General  Grant, 
and  that  his  visit  to  the  house  of  the  Secretary  was  for  the  purpose 
of  so  acquainting  himself  with  the  form  and  features  of  the  General 


76  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

as  to  be  able  readily  to  identify  him.  Had  not  the  General  been 
called  away  on  that  Friday  afternoon,  —  had  he  accompanied  the 
President  to  the  theatre,  as  he  had  intended  doing,  —  there  is 
scarcely  a  doubt  that  "  Peanuts  "  would  have  had  two  horses  to 
hold,  or  that  some  other  arrangements  would  have  been  made  for 
General  Grant's  assassination  that  would  have  made  O'Laughlin  a 
companion  of  Booth  in  his  flight. 

We  have  now  seen  the  development  of  Booth's  plot,  and  its 
partial  success,  but,  as  to  the  real  object  of  it,  its  entire  failure. 
The  thing  proposed  by  the  head  conspirators,  whose  agents  we 
have  been  following  up  in  their  efforts  for  its  accomplishment, 
failed  of  its  realization.  They  had  hoped  by  the  policy  of  assas 
sination  to  put  the  rapidly  waning  cause  of  the  confederacy  on  its 
feet  again  under  new  and  more  favorable  auspices. 

The  cause,  at  the  time  of  this  attempt  to  thus  give  it  aid,  was 
already  lost  on  the  field  of  military  conflict  beyond  hope  of  recovery. 
The  whole  people,  North  and  South,  saw  that  the  war  was  at  an  end  ; 
that  the  brief  day  of  the  so-called  Southern  Confederacy  was  over — 
that  its  sun  had  set ;  and  great  as  must  have  been  the  disappoint 
ment  of  those  who  had  so  fruitlessly  plunged  the  country  into  the 
greatest  civil  war  that  history  records,  they  were  quite  content  to 
accept  and  make  the  best  of  their  failure. 

Both  parties  were  glad  that  the  contest  had  been  decided,  and 
of  the  opportunity  to  lay  down  their  arms,  and  return  to  the  pur 
suits  of  peaceful  life.  Had  not  Booth  kept  himself  as  full  of 
whiskey  as  he  was  of  his  fiendish  purpose,  had  he  given  himself 
an  opportunity  to  scan  the  situation  in  a  duly  sober  frame  of  mind, 
we  think  it  even  more  than  probable  he  would  have  abandoned 
the  whole  project  as  useless.  But  both  he  and  his  associates  were 
free  and  constant  drinkers,  and  by  their  frequent  visits  to  saloons, 
as  shown  by  the  whole  run  of  the  testimony  before  the  Commis 
sion,  it  would  seem  probable  that  they  scarcely  ever  drew  an  abso 
lutely  sober  breath,  and  so  could  not  realize  the  true  situation  of 
the  cause  they  sought  to  serve. 

The  Canada  conspirators  are  in  like  manner,  according  to  all  the 
testimony,  shown  to  have  been  free  drinkers.  All  of  their  diaboli 
cal  schemes  were  most  probably  the  products  of  minds  acting 


MICHAEL  O'LAUGHLIN 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY. 


77 


under  the  influence  of  alcoholic  stimulants,  and  this  may  in  some 
degree  account  for  the  obtundity  of  their  moral  perceptions.  It 
has  been  said  by  one  who  was  personally  cognizant  of  the  fact, 
that  alcohol  precipitated  the  rebellion,  and  that  its  leaders  in  both 
branches  of  Congress  kept  themselves  constantly  under  the  excite 
ment  of  alcoholic  stimulants  and  so  were  made  reckless  of  con 
sequences. 

Arrest  of  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  giving  the  history  of  Booth's  flight, 
we  found  him  and  Herold  at  the  house  of  Dr.  S.  A.  Mudd,  at 
about  four  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th  of  April,  they  hav 
ing  ridden  thirty  miles  in  about  six  hours  after  leaving  Washington. 
They  would  no  doubt  have  stopped  at  Mudd's,  even  had  Booth  not 
needed  his  services  as  a  surgeon,  for  a  short  respite  and  refresh 
ment,  as  the  doctor  was,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  a  co-conspirator 
with  Booth.  Booth's  broken  leg  had  by  this  time  become  very 
painful,  and  this  made  it  necessary  that  he  should  stop  to  have  it 
dressed.  Mudd  dressed  his  leg,  as  he  himself  said,  as  well  as  he 
could  with  the  means  at  his  command,  and  giving  them  refresh 
ments,  he  placed  Booth  in  a  chamber  upstairs  where  he  remained 
until  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Mudd  and  Herold 
went  out,  as  Mudd  said,  to  find  a  carriage  in  which  to  take  Booth 
on  his  journey;  but  it  is  more  likely  Mudd  was  showing  Herold 
a  by-way  toward  the  Potomac,  at  the  point  where  they  expected 
to  cross,  whilst  Booth  was  resting. 

About  one  o'clock  on  that  afternoon,  Lieutenant  Dana,  with 
a  squad  of  cavalry,  passed  down  toward  Bryantown  in  pur 
suit  of  Booth,  and  as  there  was  no  doubt  a  sharp  look-out  kept 
from  the  house  of  Dr.  Mudd,  which  stood  about  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  from,  and  in  full  view  of,  the  road,  they  were  by  this  ad 
monished  of  their  danger  and  resumed  their  flight  as  soon  as  they 
could  after  the  soldiers  passed.  Thus  Mudd  got  them  off  of.  his 
hands,  and  started  them  on  their  way  to  his  friend,  Samuel  Cox. 
On  Tuesday,  the  1 8th  of  April,  Mudd  was  first  interviewed,  and  then 
denied  that  there  had  been  any  body  at  his  house  on  the  I5th; 
but  upon  being  pressed  with  questions,  he  finally  said  that  two 


78  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN, 

strangers  had  come  to  his  house  about  four  o'clock  on  Saturday 
morning  on  horseback,  one  of  them  having  a  broken  leg,  and  that 
he  had  taken  them  in,  dressed  the  leg,  and  had  a  crutch  made  for 
the  man,  and  that  they  had  left  after  breakfast,  telling  in  what 
direction  they  had  gone,  but  giving  a  false  cue.  He  denied  know 
ing  either  of  them,  and  said  they  were  entire  strangers  to  him, 
going  on  to  give  a  minute  description  of  the  men  and  their  horses 
as  though  desirous  of  giving  all  the  information  he  could,  but 
with  an  appearance  and  manner  that  created  distrust.  Being 
asked  if  he  knew  Booth,  he  said  he  had  been  introduced  to  him  at 
church  in  the  fall  before,  but  had  no  other  acquaintance  with 
him.  Being  asked  if  the  man  whose  leg  he  had  dressed  was  not 
Booth,  he  said  he  was  not.  When  told  by  the  officer  that  he 
would  have  to  search  the  house,  his  wife  went  upstairs  and 
brought  down  a  boot  that  Mudd  had  removed  from  Booth's  foot 
by  ripping  it  down  in  front,  and  it  was  seen  that  on  the  inside  of 
the  boot  leg,  near  the  top,  was  written,  "  J.  Wilkes,"  and  also  the 
maker's  name.  Mudd  was  interviewed  two  or  three  times  before 
his  arrest,  and  prevaricated  every  time  so  much  that  he  fre 
quently  contradicted  himself.  It  was  noticed  that  he  was  never 
*at  home  when  called  for,  but  was  not  far  off,  as  he  always  made 
his  appearance  in  a  short  time  when  sent  for  by  his  wife.  He  was 
finally  placed  under  arrest;  and  upon  the  photograph  of  Booth 
being  shown  to  him,  and  being  asked  if  that  looked  like  Booth, 
he  said  he  thought  not,  but  finally  concluded  there  was  some 
resemblance  to  Booth  across  the  eyes.  He  was  taken  to  Wash 
ington  and  held  as  a  prisoner.  Mudd  was  a  physician,  living  on  a 
farm.  He  had  had  a  considerable  number  of  slaves  at  the  break 
ing  out  of  the  rebellion,  most  of  whom  had  left  him  during  the 
previous  winter.  His  father  also,  living  in  the  neighborhood,  was 
a  large  land  and  slave  holder,  and  Mudd's  disloyalty  was  no  doubt 
of  the  rabid  type.  His  home  was  a  place  of  resort  for  returned 
rebel- soldiers  and  recruiting  parties,  and  he  had  a  place  of  con 
cealment  in  the  pines  near  his  house,  where  they  were  sheltered 
and  cared  for,  the  doctor  sending  their  food  to  them  by  his  slaves ; 
and  if,  at  any  time,  any  of  these  parties  ventured  to  his  house  to 
take  their  meals,  a  slave  was  always  placed  on  watch  to  give  notice 
of  the  approach  of  any  one. 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  79 

The  letter  of  introduction  to  Dr.  Mudd  which  Booth  had,  as 
related  by  Arnold,  had  no  doubt  been  presented  in  the  fall,  at  the 
time  Mudd  admitted  having  been  introduced  to  him  at  church; 
and  from  that  time  their  intimacy  commenced.  This  was  in 
November,  1864. 

About  the  23d  of  December,  1864,  Mudd  visited  Booth  in 
Washington,  and  introduced  him  to  John  H.  Surratt,  under  the 
following  circumstances :  Wiechmann  and  Surratt  were  on  the 
street  together,  when  Wiechmann  heard  someone  call,  "Surratt! 
Surratt !  "  and  turning  round,  they  were  met  by  Dr.  Mudd  and  Booth. 
Mudd  introduced  Booth  to  Surratt,  and  then  Surratt  introduced 
both  of  them  to  Wiechmann.  They  went,  by  invitation  of  Booth, 
to  the  National  Hotel,  where  Booth  had  a  room,  and  were  served 
by  him  with  wine  and  cigars.  Mudd  went  out  into  a  passage  and 
called  Booth.  They  remained  out  of  the  room  for  a  short  time,  and 
conversed  in  a  low  tone  of  voice.  Upon  their  return  to  the  room 
Booth  called  Surratt,  and  the  three  went  out  again  into  the  passage, 
and  were  engaged  for  some  time  in  a  private  conference.  Upon 
their  return,  Mudd  made  an  explanation,  by  way  of  apology,  to 
Wiechmann,  saying  that  Booth  wanted  to  buy  his  farm,  but  he  did 
not  care  to  sell.  Booth  also  apologized,  giving  the  same  excuse. 
The  three  then  took  seats  around  a  table,  when  Booth  took  an 
envelope  from  his  pocket,  and  upon  this,  with  his  pencil,  com 
menced  drawing  lines,  as  if  marking  roads.  Whilst  engaged  in 
doing  this  the  three  were  conversing  in  so  low  a  tone  that  Wiech 
mann  could  not  hear  what  was  said. 

Mudd  made  one  or  two  other  visits  to  Washington  during  the 
winter,  and  his  business  seemed  always  to  be  with  Booth  and 
Surratt.  At  least,  he  was  always  found  in  their  company. 

According  to  one  of  Mudd's  various  statements,  Booth  and 
Herold  left  his  house  between  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the  after 
noon.  It  will  be  noted  that  he  at  first  denied  their  having  been 
there  at  all.  Then  he  admitted  that  two  strangers  had  been  there 
on  Saturday  morning ;  that  he  had  dressed  a  broken  leg  for  one 
of  them,  and  had  a  crutch  made  for  him,  and  they  left  after  break 
fast.  That  they  remained  until  after  Dana  and  his  party  passed 
down  to  Bryantown,  there  is  no  doubt ;  and  that  they  left  as  soon 


80  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

as  possible,  assisted  by  Mudd,  after  the  soldiers  passed,  as  we  have 
heretofore  seen.  Mudd,  after  his  conviction  and  sentence,  whilst 
being  conveyed  to  the  Dry  Tortugas,  admitted,  voluntarily,  to 
Captain  Button  that  he  knew  Booth  when  he  came  to  his  house 
on  the  morning  of  the  I5th  of  April;  and  also  that  he  went  to 
Washington  in  December  by  appointment  with  Booth,  to  introduce 
him  to  Surratt.  He  might  just  as  well  have  admitted  his  com 
plicity  in  the  conspiracy.  Mudd's  expression  of  countenance  was 
that  of  a  hypocrite.  He  had  the  bump  of  secretiveness  largely 
developed  ;  and  it  would  have  taken  months  of  favorable  acquaint 
anceship  to  have  removed  the  unfavorable  impression  made  by  the 
first  scanning  of  the  man.  He  had  the  appearance  of  a  natural 
born  liar  and  deceiver. 

We  have  now  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Surratt,  Edward  Spangler,  Lewis 
Payne,  David  E.  Herold,  Samuel  Arnold,  Michael  O'Laughlin, 
George  A.  Atzerodt,  and  Dr.  Samuel  Mudd  under  arrest  and  held 
for  trial  by  the  government  under  the  charge  of  being  co-con 
spirators  with  John  H.  Surratt,  Booth,  and  others  yet  to  be  named, 
and  still  others  unknown  and  who  never  will  be  known.  The  evi 
dence  yet  to  be  adduced  makes  it  clear  that  there  were  quite  a 
number  of  these  conspirators  in  Washington  at  the  time  of  the 
assassination  who  were  never  discovered,  encouraging  by  their 
presence,  and  aiding  and  abetting,  Booth  and  his  associates. 

There  are  good  reasons  for  believing  that  the  purpose  of  Booth 
and  his  fellow-conspirators  was  known  to  many,  both  in  Canada 
and  the  United  States,  who  were  interested  in  the  destruction  of 
our  government.  It  may  yet  happen  that  a  sufficient  amount  of 
evidence  may  be  found  to  justify  this,  or  some  other  writer,  in 
making  explicit  charges  that  are  for  the  present  withheld. 

In  regard  to  the  persons  above  named  who  were  put  upon  their 
trial,  the  writer  will  only  say  that,  in  giving  an  account  of  the 
grounds  of  arrest  in  each  case,  he  has  stated  the  facts  proven  by 
unimpeached  witnesses  before  the  Commission,  whose  testimony 
governed  the  decisions  of  the  court  in  their  respective  cases,  and 
that  his  statements  of  the  facts  in  evidence  will  be  found  to  be 
fully  vindicated  by  a  critical  examination  and  study  of  the  testi 
mony  as  given  by  Pittman  in  his  official  report  of  the  trial.  He 


1 


GEORGE  A.  ATZERODT. 


UNRAVELLING    THE    CONSPIRACY.  8 1 

feels  sure  that  no  one,  with  that  report  before  him,  can  impeach 
the  account  he  has  given  of  the  parts  acted  by  each  one  of  the 
prisoners  named  in  this  great  tragedy ;  and  upon  these  facts  must 
rest  the  judgment  of  mankind,  as  did  the  judgment  of  the  court. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

QUESTIONS    PRELIMINARY   TO    THE   TRIAL. 
What  Sort  of  Trial  should  be  given,  Civil  or  Military  f 

THE  first  question  that  presented  itself  to  the  government  in 
regard  to  these  prisoners  was,  as  to  what  kind  of  a  trial  should  be 
given  them,  whether  civil  or  military?  The  civil  courts  were  open 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  at  the  time,  and  had  been  all  through 
the  war.  There  was  no  question  that  a  form  of  trial  could  be  had 
in  the  civil  courts ;  but  there  was  at  the  same  time  as  little  ques 
tion  that,  under  existing  circumstances,  such  a  trial  would  only 
result  in  a  miscarriage  of  justice.  The  great  crime  had  been  com 
mitted  during  the  existence  of  a  state  of  war,  and  the  courts  were 
only  able  to  carry  on  their  functions  under  the  protection  of  the 
arms  of  the  government. 

This  aegis  being  withdrawn,  the  administration  of  justice  through 
the  civil  courts  would  have  been  an  impossibility,  even  in  the 
capital  of  the  nation ;  and  with  this  protection  it  was  equally  im 
possible  to  secure  the  demands  of  justice  through  the  civil  courts 
in  cases  involving  the  issues  of  the  war,  as  a  jury  of  partizans 
could  not  be  expected  to  decide  impartially  if  all  belonged  to  one 
party,  and  if  divided  on  party  lines,  they  could  not  be  expected  to 
decide  at  all.  The  latter  alternative  was  the  only  one  on  which  a 
jury  could  have  been  impaneled,  under  the  rules  of  law,  at  that 
time,  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  Outside  of  the  soldiery  there 
were  as  many  enemies  as  friends  of  the  government  in  the  popula 
tion  of  the  district,  to  say  the  least,  and  many  of  these  enemies 
were  passing  under  the  guise  of  friends.  In  this  state  of  things  it 
was  obvious  that  it  would  be  futile  to  send  these  prisoners  before 
a  civil  tribunal  for  trial.  The  government  had  evidence  that  a 
82 


QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY    TO    THE    TRIAL.  83 

great  conspiracy  existed,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  aid  the  rebel 
cause  by  a  series  of  assassinations,  and  that  what  had  happened 
was  in  pursuance  of  that  plan,  but  only  its  partial  accomplishment. 
The  extent  of  this  conspiracy  had  not  been  fully  revealed,  but  its 
spirit  and  purpose  were  known,  and  both  wisdom  and  good  policy 
required  that  it  should  be  met  with  the  utmost  promptitude  and 
suppressed  with  no  faltering  hand.  These  persons  had  been 
arrested  by  the  military  police,  and  were  held  as  prisoners  in 
military  custody.  They  were  held  not  as  prisoners  of  war,  but 
as  secret  active  enemies  of  the  government,  guilty  of  a  crime  the 
purpose  of  which  was  to  aid  the  rebellion,  and  this  being  their 
purpose,  it  took  them  out  of  the  realm  of  civil,  into  the  realm  of 
martial,  law.  Their  crime  was  regarded  as  an  act  of  war,  inas 
much  as  its  purpose  was  to  aid  the  existing  armed  rebellion.  The 
means  by  which  they  thus  sought  to  give  it  aid  were  morally  rep 
rehensible,  and  such  as  had  long  been  rejected  by  the  enlightened 
sentiment  of  the  civilized  and  Christian  nations  of  the  earth.  The 
crime  was  a  blow  at  the  life  of  the  nation,  in  the  person  of  its 
chosen  head,  and  was  committed  in  the  nation's  capital,  and  within 
the  intrenched  lines  and  fortifications  thereof ;  and  so  it  was  decided 
that  the  prisoners  were  properly  subject  to  a  trial  by  a  military 
commission. 

President  Lincoln's  order  of  September  25th,  1862,  had  not 
been  rescinded  and  was  still  in  force,  and  under  this  order  the  pris 
oners  were,  from  the  purpose  of  their  crime,  subject  to  a  military 
trial.  They  could  not,  under  the  articles  of  war,  be  sent  before  a 
court-martial  for  trial,  but  could,  under  martial  law,  which  is 
only  the  common  laiv  in  a  state  of  war,  be  tried  by  a  military 
commission. 

The  chief  conspirators,  on  whom  rested  the  responsibility  of  the 
plot,  were  still  at  large,  and  in  an  attitude  of  desperate  hos 
tility  towards  the  government.  The  extent  of  their  plans,  and  the 
means  at  their  command  for  their  execution,  could  not  be  known, 
and  so  it  was  a  matter  of  the  utmost  importance  to  deal  with  the 
prisoners  in  the  most  summary  manner  consistent  with  the  ends 
of  justice.  The  President  requested  the  attorney  general,  Hon 
orable  James  Speed,  a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  to  give  his  official 


84  ASSASSINA77ON   OF  LINCOLN. 

opinion  as  to  whether  these  persons  implicated  in  this  crime  could 
be  tried  before  a  military  tribunal,  or  must  be  tried  before  a  civil 
court.  As  the  reply  of  the  Attorney  General  furnishes  an  exhaus 
tive  discussion  of  the  different  conditions  'existing  under  a  state  of 
peace  and  a  state  of  war,  and  shows  that  whilst  in  a  state  of  peace 
the  Constitution  throws  its  shield  of  protection  over  the  life, 
liberty,  and  property  of  the  citizen,  even  the  humblest,  its  pro 
visions  cannot  afford  protection  to  these  in  a  state  of  war,  and 
that  martial  law,  or  the  common  law  of  war  comes  in  in  the  place  of 
the  Constitution  to  ameliorate  as  much  as  possible  the  miseries  of 
war,  and  secure,  as  far  as  possible,  the  ends  of  justice  and  mercy; 
and  as  it  constitutes  a  most  important  and  interesting  document 
worthy  of  the  careful  study  of  every  young  man  who  desires  to 
become  well  informed  on  the  most  important  questions  of  our 
national  life,  I  shall  give  it  a  place  entire,  and  commend  it  to 
careful  perusal  and  study. 

Opinion  of  the  Attorney   General. 

The  President  was  assassinated  at  a  theatre  in  the  city  of  Washington.  At  the 
time  of  the  assassination  a  civil  war  was  flagrant,  —  the  city  of  Washington  was  defended 
by  fortifications  regularly  and  constantly  manned,  the  principal  police  of  the  city  was  by 
federal  soldiers,  the  public  offices  and  property  in  the  city  were  all  guarded  by  soldiers, 
and  the  President's  house  and  person  were,  or  should  have  been,  under  the  guard  of 
soldiers.  Martial  law  had  been  declared  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  the  civil  courts 
were  open  and  held  their  regular  sessions,  and  transacted  business  as  in  times  of  peace. 
Such  being  the  facts,  the  question  is  one  of  great  importance,  —  important  because  it 
involves  the  constitutional  guarantees  thrown  about  the  rights  of  the  citizen,  and  because 
the  security  of  the  army  and  government  in  time  of  war  is  involved;  important,  as  it 
involves  a  seeming  conflict  between  the  laws  of  peace  and  war.  Having  given  the 
question  propounded  the  patient  and  earnest  consideration  its  magnitude  and  importance 
require,  I  will  proceed  to  give  the  reasons  why  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  conspirators 
not  only  may  but  ought  to  be  tried  by  a  military  tribunal.  A  civil  court  of  the  United 
States  is  created  by  a  law  of  Congress,  under  and  according  to  the  Constitution.  To 
the  Constitution  and  the  law  we  must  look  to  ascertain  how  the  court  is  constituted,  the 
limits  of  its  jurisdiction,  and  what  its  mode  of  procedure.  A  military  tribunal  exists 
under  and  according  to  the  Constitution  in  time  of  war.  Congress  may  prescribe  how 
all  such  tribunals  are  to  be  constituted,  what  shall  be  their  jurisdiction  and  mode  of 
procedure.  Should  Congress  fail  to  create  such  tribunals,  then,  under  the  Constitution, 
they  must  be  constituted  according  to  the  laws  and  usages  of  civilized  warfare.  They 
may  take  cognizance  of  such  offences  as  the  laws  of  war  permit;  they  must  proceed 
according  to  the  customary  usages  of  such  tribunals  in  time  of  war,  and  inflict  such 
punishments  as  are  sanctioned  by  the  practice  of  civilized  nations  in  time  of  war.  In 


QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY    TO    THE    TRIAL.  85 

time  of  peace,  neither  Congress  nor  the  military  can  create  any  military  tribunals,  except 
such  as  are  made  in  pursuance  of  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  gives  to  Congress 
the  power  "to  make  rules  for  the  government  of  the  land  and  naval  forces."  I  do 
not  think  that  Congress  can,  in  time  of  war  or  peace,  under  this  clause  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  create  military  tribunals  for  the  adjudication  of  offenses  committed  by  persons  not 
engaged  in,  or  belonging  to,  such  forces. 

This  is  a  proposition  too  plain  for  argument.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  because 
such  military  tribunals  cannot  be  created  by  Congress  under  this  clause  that  they  cannot 
be  created  at  all.  Is  there  no  other  power  conferred  by  the  Constitution  upon  Congress 
or  the  military  under  which  such  tribunals  may  be  created  in  time  of  war  ?  That  the  law 
of  nations  constitutes  a  part  of  the  law  of  the  land  must  be  admitted.  The  laws  of  nations 
are  expressly  made  laws  of  the  land  by  the  Constitution  when  it  says  that  "  Congress 
shall  have  power  to  define  and  punish  piracies  and  felonies  committed  on  the  high  seas, 
and  offences  against  the  law  of  nations.  To  define  is  to  give  the  limits  or  precise  mean 
ing  of  a  word  or  thing  in  being;  to  make  is  to  call  into  being.  Congress  has  power  to 
define,  not  to  make,  the  laws  of  nations;  but  Congress  has  power  to  make  rules  for  the 
government  of  the  army  and  navy.  From  the  very  face  of  the  Constitution,  then,  it  is 
evident  that  the  laws  of  nations  do  constitute  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  land.  But 
very  soon  after  the  organization  of  the  federal  government,  Mr.  Randolph,  then  attorney 
general,  said:  "The  law  of  nations,  although  not  specifically  adopted  by  the  Constitu 
tion,  is  essentially  a  part  of  the  law  of  the  land.  Its  obligation  commences  and  runs 
with  the  existence  of  a  nation,  subject  to  some  modifications  on  points  of  indifference." 
The  framers  of  the  Constitution  knew  that  a  nation  could  not  maintain  an  honorable 
place  among  the  nations  of  the  world  that  does  not  regard  the  great  and  essential  prin 
ciples  of  the  law  of  nations  as  a  part  of  the  law  of  the  land.  Hence  Congress  may 
define  those  laws  but  cannot  abrogate  them,  or,  as  Mr.  Randolph  says,  may  "modify  on 
some  points  of  indifference." 

That  the  laws  of  nations  constitute  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  land,  is  established  from 
the  face  of  the  Constitution  upon  principle  and  by  authority.  But  the  laws  of  war 
constitute  much  the  greater  part  of  the  law  of  nations.  Like  the  other  laws  of  nations, 
they  exist  and  are  of  binding  force  upon  the  departments  and  citizens  of  the  govern 
ment,  though  not  defined  by  any  law  of  Congress.  No  one  that  has  ever  glanced  at 
the  many  treatises  that  have  been  published  in  different  ages  of  the  world  by  great, 
good,  and  learned  men,  can  fail  to  know  that  the  laws  of  war  constitute  a  part  of  the 
law  of  nations,  and  that  those  laws  have  been  prescribed  with  tolerable  accuracy.  Con 
gress  can  declare  war.  When  war  is  declared  it  must  be  under  the  Constitution,  carried 
on  according  to  the  known  usages  and  laws  of  war  among  civilized  nations.  Under  the 
power  to  define  these  laws,  Congress  cannot  abrogate  them,  or  authorize  their  infraction. 

The  Constitution  does  not  permit  this  government  to  prosecute  a  war  as  an  uncivil 
ized  and  barbarous  people.  As  war  is  required  by  the  frame- work  of  our  government  to 
be  prosecuted  according  to  the  known  usages  of  war  among  the  civilized  nations  of  the 
earth,  it  is  important  to  understand  what  are  the  obligations,  duties,  and  responsibilities 
imposed  by  war  upon  the  military.  Congress,  not  having  defined,  as  under  the  Consti 
tution  it  might  have  done,  the  laws  of  war,  we  must  look  to  the  usage  of  nations  to 
ascertain  the  powers  conferred  in  war,  on  whom  the  exercise  of  these  powers  devolve, 
over  whom,  and  to  what  extent  do  these  powers  reach,  and  in  how  far  the  citizen  and 
the  soldier  are  bound  by  the  legitimate  use  thereof.  The  power  conferred  by  war  is,  of 
course,  adequate  to  the  end  to  be  accomplished,  and  not  greater  than  what  is  necessary 


86  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

to  be  accomplished.     The  law  of  war,  like  every  other  code  of  laws,  declares  what  shall 
not  be  done,  and  does  not  say  what  may  be  done. 

The  legitimate  use  of  the  great  power  of  war,  or  rather  the  prohibitions  upon  the 
use  of  that  power,  increase  or  diminish  as  the  necessity  of  the  case  demands.  When  a 
city  is  besieged  and  hard  pressed  the  commander  may  exert  an  authority  over  the  non- 
combatants  which  he  may  not  when  no  enemy  is  near.  All  wars  against  a  domestic 
enemy,  or  to  repel  invasions,  are  prosecuted  to  preserve  the  government.  If  the  invad 
ing  force  can  be  overcome  by  the  ordinary  civil  police  of  a  country,  it  should  be  done 
without  bringing  upon  the  country  the  terrible  scourge  of  war;  if  a  commotion  or  insur 
rection  can  be  put  down  by  the  ordinary  process  of  law,  the  military  should  not  be 
called  out.  A  defensive  foreign  war  is  declared  and  carried  on  because  the  civil  police 
is  inadequate  to  repel  it;  a  civil  war  is  waged  because  the  laws  cannot  be  peacefully 
enforced  by  the  ordinary  tribunals  of  the  country  through  civil  process  and  by  civil 
officers.  Because  of  the  utter  inability  to  keep  the  peace  and  maintain  order  by  cus 
tomary  officers  and  agencies  in  time  of  peace,  armies  are  organized  and  put  into  the 
field.  They  are  called  out  and  invested  with  the  powers  of  war  to  prevent  total  anarchy 
and  to  preserve  the  government. 

Peace  is  the  normal  condition  of  a  country,  and  war  abnormal,  neither  being  without 
law,  but  each  having  laws  appropriate  to  the  condition  of  society.  The  maxim  enter 
arma  silent  leges  is  never  wholly  true.  The  object  of  war  is  to  bring  society  out  of  its 
abnormal  condition;  and  the  laws  of  war  aim  to  have  that  done  with  the  least  possible 
injury  to  persons  and  property.  Anciently,  when  two  nations  were  at  war  the  conqueror 
had,  or  asserted,  the  right  to  take  from  his  enemy  his  life,  liberty,  and  property:  if 
either  was  spared  it  was  a  favor,  or  act  of  mercy.  By  the  laws  of  nations,  and  of  war 
as  a  part  thereof,  the  conqueror  was  deprived  of  this  right. 

When  two  governments,  foreign  to  each  other,  are  at  war,  or  when  a  civil  wai 
becomes  territorial,  all  of  the  people  of  the  respective  belligerents  become  by  the  law 
of  nations  the  enemies  of  each  other.  As  enemies  they  cannot  hold  intercourse,  but 
neither  can  kill  or  injure  the  other  except  under  a  commission  from  their  respective  gov 
ernments.  So  humanizing  have  been,  and  are,  the  laws  of  war,  that  it  is  a  high  offense 
against  them  to  kill  an  enemy  without  such  commission.  The  laws  of  war  demand  that 
a  man  shall  not  take  human  life  except  under  a  license  from  his  government;  and  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  no  license  can  be  given  by  any  department  of  the 
government  to  take  human  life  in  war,  except  according  to  the  law  and  usages  of  war. 
Soldiers  regularly  in  the  service  have  the  license  of  the  government  to  deprive  men,  the 
active  enemies  of  their  government,  of  their  liberty  and  lives:  their  commission  so  tc* 
act  is  as  perfect  and  as  legal  as  that  of  a  judge  to  adjudicate;  but  the  soldier  must  act 
in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  war,  as  the  judge  must  in  obedience  to  the  civil  law.  A 
civil  judge  must  try  criminals  in  the  mode  prescribed  in  the  Constitution  and  the  law; 
so,  soldiers  must  kill  or  capture  according  to  the  laws  of  war.  Non-combatants  are  not 
to  be  disturbed  or  interfered  with  by  the  armies  of  either  party  except  in  extreme  cases. 

Armies  are  called  out  and  organized  to  meet  and  overcome  the  active  acting  public 
enemies.  But  enemies  with  which  armies  have  to  deal  are  of  two  classes,  i.  Open, 
active  participants  in  hostilities,  as  soldiers  who  wear  the  uniform,  move  under  the  flag, 
and  hold  the  appropriate  commission  from  their  government,  openly  assuming  to  dis 
charge  the  duties  and  meet  the  responsibilities  and  dangers  of  soldiers,  they  are  entitled 
to  all  belligerent  rights,  and  should  receive  all  the  courtesies  due  to  soldiers.  The  true 
soldier  is  proud  to  acknowledge  and  respect  those  rights,  and  ever  cheerfully  extends 


QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY    TO    THE    TRIAL.  8/ 

these  courtesies.  2.  Secret,  but  active  participants,  as  spies,  brigands,  bushwhackers, 
jayhawkers,  war-rebels,  and  assassins.  In  all  wars,  and  especially  civil  wars,  such 
secret,  active  enemies  rise  up  to  annoy  and  attack  an  army,  and  must  be  met  and  put 
down  by  the  army.  \Vhen  lawless  wretches  become  so  impudent  and  powerful  as  not 
to  be  controlled  and  governed  by  the  ordinary  tribunals  of  a  country,  armies  are  called 
out  and  the  laws  of  war  invoked.  War  has  never  been  and  can  never  be  conducted  on 
the  principle  that  an  army  is  but  a  posse  comitatus  of  a  civil  magistrate.  An  army,  like 
all  other  organized  bodies,  has  a  right,  and  its  first  duty  is  to  protect  its  own  existence, 
and  the  existence  of  all  its  parts,  by  the  means  and  in  the  mode  usual  among  civilized 
nations  when  at  war.  The  question  arises,  then,  do  the  laws  of  war  authorize  a  differ 
ent  mode  of  proceeding  and  the  use  of  different  means  against  secret  active  enemies 
from  those  used  against  open  active  enemies?  As  has  been  said,  the  open  enemy  or 
soldier  in  time  of  war  may  be  met  in  battle  and  killed,  wounded,  or  taken  prisoner,  or 
so  placed  by  the  lawful  strategy  of  war  as  that  he  is  powerless.  Unless  the  law  of  self- 
preservation  absolutely  demands  it,  the  life  of  a  wounded  enemy  or  a  prisoner  must  be 
spared. 

Unless  pressed  thereto  by  the  extremest  necessity,  the  laws  of  war  condemn  and 
punish  with  great  severity  harsh  or  cruel  treatment  to  a  wounded  enemy  or  a  prisoner. 
Certain  stipulations  and  agreements,  tacit  or  express,  betwixt  the  open  belligerent  parties 
are  permitted  by  the  laws  of  war,  and  are  held  to  be  of  a  very  high  and  sacred  character. 
Such  is  the  tacit  understanding,  or  it  may  be  usage  of  war,  in  regard  to  flags  of  truce. 
Flags  of  truce  are  resorted  to  as  a  means  of  saving  human  life,  or  alleviating  human 
suffering.  When  not  used  with  perfidy,  the  laws  of  war  require  that  they  should  be 
respected.  The  Romans  regarded  embassadors  betwixt  belligerents  as  persons  to  be 
treated  with  consideration  and  respect.  Plutarch,  in  his  life  of  Gesar,  tells  us  that  the 
barbarians  in  Gaul,  having  sent  some  embassadors  to  Gesar,  he  detained  them,  charging 
fraudulent  practices,  and  led  his  army  to  battle,  obtaining  a  great  victory.  When  the 
senate  decreed  festivals  and  sacrifices  for  the  victory,  Cato  declared  it  to  be  his  opinion 
that  Gesar  ought  to  be  given  into  the  hands  of  the  barbarians,  that  so  the  guilt  which 
this  breach  of  faith  might  otherwise  bring  upon  the  state  might  be  expiated  by  trans 
ferring  the  curse  on  him  who  was  the  occasion  of  it.  Under  the  Constitution  and  laws 
of  the  United  States,  should  a  commander  be  guilty  of  such  a  flagrant  breach  of  law  as 
Cato  charged  upon  Caesar,  he  would  not  be  delivered  to  the  enemy,  but  would  be  pun 
ished  after  a  military  trial. 

The  many  honorable  gentlemen  who  hold  commissions  in  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  have  been  deputed  to  conduct  war  according  to  the  laws  of  war,  would 
keenly  feel  it  as  an  insult  to  their  profession  of  arms  for  any  one  to  say  they  could  not 
or  would  not  punish  a  fellow  soldier  who  was  wantonly  guilty  of  cruelty  to  a  prisoner, 
or  perfidy  towards  the  bearer  of  a  flag  of  truce.  The  laws  of  war  permit  capitulations 
of  surrender  and  paroles.  They  are  agreements  betwixt  belligerents,  and  should  be 
scrupulously  observed  and  performed.  They  are  contracts  wholly  unknown  to  civil  tri 
bunals.  Parties  to  such  contracts  must  answer  any  breaches  thereof  to  the  customary 
military  tribunals  in  time  of  war.  If  an  officer  of  rank,  possessing  the  pride  that 
becomes  a  soldier  and  a  gentleman,  who  should  capitulate  to  surrender  his  forces  and 
property  under  his  command  and  control,  be  charged  with  a  fraudulent  breach  of  the 
terms  of  surrender,  the  laws  of  war  do  not  permit  that  he  should  be  punished  without  a 
trial,  or,  if  innocent,  that  he  should  have  no  means  of  wiping  out  the  foul  imputation. 
If  a  paroled  prisoner  is  charged  with  a  breach  of  his  parole,  he  may  be  punished,  if 


88  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

guilty,  but  not  without  a  trial.     He  should  be  tried  by  a  military  tribunal,  constituted 
and  proceeding  as  the  laws  and  usages  of  war  prescribe. 

The  law  and  usage  of  war  contemplate  that  soldiers  have  a  high  sense  of  personal 
honor.  The  true  soldier  is  proud  to  feel  and  know  that  his  enemy  possesses  personal 
honor,  and  will  conform  and  be  obedient  to  the  laws  of  war.  In  a  spirit  of  justice, 
and  with  a  wise  appreciation  of  such  feelings,  the  laws  of  war  protect  the  honor  and 
character  of  an  open  enemy.  When,  by  the  fortunes  of  war,  one  open  enemy  is  thrown 
into  the  hands  and  power  of  another,  and  is  charged  with  dishonorable  conduct  and  a 
breach  of  the  laws  of  war,  he  must  be  tried  according  to  the  usages  of  war.  Justice 
and  fairness  say  that  an  open  enemy  to  whom  dishonorable  conduct  is  imputed  has  a 
right  to  demand  a  trial.  If  such  a  demand  can  be  rightfully  made,  surely  it  cannot  be 
rightfully  refused.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  military  authorities  of  this  country  will 
never  refuse  such  a  demand  because  there  is  no  act  of  Congress  that  authorizes  it.  In 
time  of  war  the  law  and  usages  of  war  authorize  it,  and  they  are  a  part  of  the  law  of 
the  land.  One  belligerent  may  request  the  other  to  punish  for  breaches  of  the  laws  of 
war,  and,  regularly,  such  a  request  should  be  made  before  retaliatory  measures  are 
taken.  Whether  the  laws  of  war  have  been  infringed  or  not  is,  of  necessity,  a  question 
to  be  decided  by  the  laws  and  usages  of  war,  and  is  cognizable  before  a  military  tribunal. 
When  prisoners  of  war  conspire  to  escape,  or  are  guilty  of  a  breach  of  appropriate  and 
necessary  rules  of  prison  discipline,  they  may  be  punished,  but  not  without  trial.  The 
commander  who  should  order  every  prisoner  charged  with  improper  conduct  to  be  shot 
or  hung  would  be  guilty  of  a  high  offense  against  the  laws  of  war,  and  should  be 
punished  therefor  after  a  military  trial.  If  the  culprit  should  be  condemned  and  exe 
cuted,  the  commander  would  be  as  free  from  guilt  as  if  the  man  had  been  killed  in 
battle.  It  is  manifest  from  what  has  been  said,  that  military  tribunals  exist  under  and 
according  to  the  laws  of  war,  in  the  interest  of  justice  and  mercy.  They  are  established 
to  save  human  life  and  to  prevent  cruelty  as  far  as  possible.  The  commander  of  an 
army  in  time  of  war  has  the  same  power  to  organize  military  tribunals  and  to  execute 
their  judgments  that  he  has  to  set  his  squadrons  in  the  field  and  fight  battles.  His 
authority  in  each  case  is  from  the  laws  and  usages  of  war.  Having  seen  that  there 
must  be  military  tribunals  to  decide  questions  arising  in  time  of  war  betwixt  belligerents 
who  are  open  and  active  enemies,  let  us  next  see  whether  the  laws  of  war  do  not 
authorize  such  tribunals  to  determine  the  fate  of  those  who  are  active  but  secret  partici 
pants  in  the  hostilities.  In  Mr.  Wharton's  "  Elements  of  International  Law,"  he  says: 
"The  effect  of  a  state  of  war,  lawfully  declared  to  exist,  is  to  place  all  the  subjects  of 
each  belligerent  power  in  a  state  of  natural  hostility.  The  usage  of  nations  has  modi 
fied  this  maxim  by  legalizing  such  acts  of  hostility  only  as  are  committed  by  those  who 
are  authorized  by  the  express  or  implied  command  of  the  State,  such  as  the  regularly 
commissioned  naval  and  military  forces  of  the  nation,  and  all  others  called  out  in  its 
defense,  or  spontaneously  defending  themselves  in  case  of  necessity,  without  any  express 
authority  for  that  purpose."  Cicero  tells  us  in  his  offices,  that  by  the  Roman  feudal 
law  no  person  could  lawfully  engage  in  battle  with  the  public  enemy  without  being  reg 
ularly  enrolled,  and  taking  the  military  oath.  This  was  a  regulation  sanctioned  both  by 
policy  and  religion.  The  horrors  of  war  would  indeed  be  greatly  aggravated  if  every 
individual  of  the  belligerent  States  were  allowed  to  plunder  and  slay  indiscriminately 
the  enemies'  subjects  without  being  in  any  manner  accountable  for  his  conduct.  Hence, 
it  is  in  land-wars  irregular  bands  oj  marauders  are  liable  to  be  treated  as  lawless 
banditti,  not  entitled  to  tke  protection  of  tke  mitigated  usages  of  war  as  practiced  by 
civilized  nations. 


QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY   TO    THE    TRIAL.  89 

In  speaking  upon  the  subject  of  banditti,  Patrick  Henry  said  in  the  Virginia  Conven 
tion:  "The  honorable  gentleman  has  given  you  an  elaborate  account  of  what  he  judges 
tyrannical  legislation,  and  an  ex-post  facto  law  (in  the  case  of  Josiah  Philips);  he  has  mis 
interpreted  the  facts.  That  man  was  not  executed  by  a  tyrannical  stroke  of  power,  nor 
was  he  a  Socrates;  he  was  a  fugitive  murderer  and  an  outlaw;  a  man  wrho  commanded 
an  infamous  banditti,  and  at  a  time  when  the  war  was  at  the  most  perilous  stage  he  com 
mitted  the  most  cruel  and  shocking  barbarities;  he  was  an  enemy  to  the  human  name. 
Those  who  declare  war  against  the  human  race  may  be  struck  out  of  existence  as  soon 
as  apprehended.  He  was  not  executed  according  to  those  beautiful  legal  ceremonies 
which  are  pointed  out  by  the  law  in  criminal  cases.  The  enormity  of  his  crime  did  not 
entitle  him  to  it.  I  am  truly  a  friend  to  legal  forms  and  methods;  but,  sir,  the  occasion 
warranted  the  measure.  A  pirate,  an  outlaw,  or  a  common  enemy  to  all  mankind  may 
be  put  to  death  at  any  time.  It  is  justified  by  the  law  of  war  and  of  nations."  No 
reader,  not  to  say  student,  of  the  law  of  nations  can  doubt  that  Mr.  Wheaton  and  Mr. 
Henry  have  fairly  stated  the  laws  of  war.  Let  it  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  they 
are  talking  of  the  law  in  a  state  of  war.  These  banditti  that  spring  up  in  time  of  war 
are  respecters  of  no  law,  human  or  divine,  of  peace  or  of  war,  are  hastes  humani  generis, 
and  may  be  hunted  down  like  wolves.  Thoroughly  desperate  and  perfectly  lawless,  no 
man  can  be  required  to  peril  his  life  in  venturing  to  take  them  prisoners;  as  prisoners 
no  trust  can  be  reposed  in  them.  But  they  are  occasionally  made  prisoners.  Being 
prisoners,  what  is  to  be  done  with  them?  If  they  are  public  enemies,  assuming  and 
exercising  the  right  to  kill,  and  are  not  regularly  authorized  to  do  so,  they  must  be 
apprehended  and  dealt  with  by  the  military.  No  man  can  doubt  the  right  and  duty  of 
the  military  to  make  prisoners  of  them,  and  being  public  enemies  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
military  to  punish  them  for  any  infractions  of  the  laws  of  war. 

But  the  military  cannot  ascertain  whether  they  are  guilty  or  not  without  the  aid  of  a 
military  tribunal.  In  all  wars,  and  especially  in  civil  wars,  secret  but  active  enemies  are 
almost  as  numerous  as  open  ones.  That  fact  has  contributed  to  make  civil  wars  such 
scourges  to  the  countries  in  which  they  rage.  In  nearly  all  foreign  wars  the  contending 
parties  speak  different  languages  and  have  different  habits  and  manners,  but  in  most 
civil  wars  that  is  not  the  case;  hence  there  is  a  security  in  participating  secretly  in 
hostilities  that  induces  many  to  thus  engage.  War  prosecuted  according  to  the  most 
civilized  usage  is  horrible,  but  its  horrors  are  greatly  aggravated  by  the  immemorial 
habits  of  plunder,  rape,  and  murder  practiced  by  secret  but  active  participants.  Certain 
laws  and  usages  have  been  adopted  by  the  civilized  world  in  wars  between  nations  that 
are  not  of  kin  to  one  another,  for  the  purpose  and  to  the  effect  of  arresting  or  softening 
many  of  the  necessary  cruel  consequences  of  war.  How  strongly  bound  are  we,  then, 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  war  where  brother  and  personal  friend  are  fighting  against 
brother  and  friend,  to  adopt  and  be  governed  by  these  usages.  A  public  enemy  must  or 
should  be  dealt  with  in  all  wars  by  the  same  laws.  The  fact  they  are  public  enemies 
being  the  same,  they  should  deal  with  each  other  according  to  those  laws  of  war  that  are 
contemplated  by  the  Constitution. 

Whatever  rules  have  been  adopted  and  practiced  by  the  civilized  nations  of  the 
world  in  war  to  soften  its  hardships  and  severity  should  be  adopted  and  practiced  by  us 
in  this  war.  That  the  laws  of  war  authorize  commanders  to  create  and  establish  military 
commissions,  courts  or  tribunals  for  the  trial  of  offenders  against  the  laws  of  war, 
whether  they  be  open  or  secret  participants  in  the  hostilities,  cannot  be  denied.  That 
the  judgments  of  such  tribunals  may  have  been  sometimes  harsh,  and  sometimes  even 


9O  ASSASSIArATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

tyrannical,  does  not  prove  that  they  ought  not  to  exist,  nor  does  it  prove  that  they  are 
not  constituted  in  the  interest  of  justice  and  mercy.  Considering  the  power  that  the 
laws  of  war  give  over  secret  participants  in  hostilities,  such  as  banditti,  guerillas,  spies, 
etc.,  the  position  of  a  commander  would  be  miserable  indeed  if  he  could  not  call  to  his. 
aid  the  judgments  of  such  tribunals;  he  would  become  a  mere  butcher  of  men  without 
the  power  to  ascertain  justice,  and  there  can  be  no  mercy  where  there  is  no  justice. 
War  in  its  mildest  form  is  horrible;  but  take  away  from  the  contending  armies  the  ability 
and  right  to  organize  what  is  now  known  as  a  Bureau  of  Military  Justice,  they  would 
soon  become  monster  savages  unrestrained  by  any  and  all  ideas  of  law  and  justice. 
Surely  no  lover  of  mankind,  no  one  that  respects  law  and  order,  no  one  that  has  the 
instinct  of  justice  or  that  can  be  softened  by  mercy,  would  in  time  of  war  take  away 
from  the  commanders  the  right  to  organize  military  tribunals  of  justice,  and  especially 
such  tribunals  for  the  protection  of  persons  charged  or  suspected  of  being  secret  foes  and 
participants  in  hostilities.  It  would  be  a  miracle  if  the  records  and  history  of  this  war 
do  not  show  occasional  cases  in  which  those  tribunals  have  erred;  but  they  will  show 
many,  very  many  cases  in  which  human  life  would  have  been  taken  but  for  the  interpo 
sition  and  judgments  of  these  tribunals.  Every  student  of  the  laws  of  war  must 
acknowledge  that  such  tribunals  exert  a  kindly  and  benign  influence  in  time  of  war. 
Impartial  history  will  record  the  fact  that  the  Bureau  of  Military  Justice,  regularly 
organized  during  this  war,  has  saved  human  life  and  prevented  human  suffering.  The 
greatest  suffering  patiently  endured  by  soldiers,  and  the  hardest  battles  gallantly  fought 
during  this  protracted  struggle,  are  not  more  creditable  to  the  American  character  than 
the  establishment  of  this  bureau. 

This  people  have  such  an  educated  and  profound  respect  for  law  and  justice,  such 
a  love  of  mercy,  that  they  have  in  the  midst  of  this  greatest  of  civil  wars  systematized 
and  brought  into  regular  order  tribunals  that  before  this  war  existed  under  the  law  of 
war,  but  without  general  rule.  To  condemn  the  tribunals  that  have  been  established 
under  this  bureau  is  to  condemn  and  denounce  the  war  itself,  or,  justifying  the  war,  to 
insist  that  it  shall  be  prosecuted  according  to  the  harshest  rules,  and  without  the  aid  of 
laws,  usages,  and  customary  agencies  for  mitigating  those  rules.  If  such  tribunals  had 
not  existed  before,  under  the  laws  and  usages  of  war,  the  American  citizen  might  as 
proudly  point  to  their  establishment  as  to  our  inimitable  and  inestimable  Constitutions. 
It  must  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  such  tribunals  and  such  a  bureau  cannot  exist 
except  in  time  of  war,  and  cannot  then  take  cognizance  of  offenders  and  offenses  where 
the  civil  courts  are  open,  except  offenders  and  offenses  against  the  laws  of  war.  But  it 
is  insisted  by  some,  and  doubtless  with  honesty,  and  with  a  zeal  commensurate  with 
their  honesty,  that  such  tribunals  can  have  no  constitutional  existence.  The  argument 
against  their  constitutionality  may  be  shortly,  and  I  think,  fairly  stated  thus :  Congress 
alone  can  establish  military  or  civil  judicial  tribunals.  As  Congress  has  not  established 
military  tribunals,  except  such  as  have  been  created  under  the  articles  of  war,  and 
which  articles  are  made  in  pursuance  of  that  clause  in  the  Constitution  which  gives  to 
Congress  the  power  to  make  rules  for  the  government  of  the  army  and  navy,  any  other 
tribunal  is  and  must  be  plainly  unconstitutional,  and  all  its  acts  void.  This  objection, 
thus  stated,  or  stated  in  any  form,  begs  the  question.  It  assumes  that  Congress  alone 
can  establish  military  judicial  tribunals.  Is  that  assumption  true? 

We  have  seen  that  when  war  comes,  the  laws  and  usages  of  war  come  with  it,  and 
that  during  the  war  they  are  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  land.  Under  the  Constitution, 
Congress  may  define  and  punish  offenses  against  those  laws,  but  in  default  of  Congress. 


QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY    TO    THE    TRIAL.  91 

defining  those  laws  and  prescribing  punishment  for  their  infraction,  and  the  mode  of 
proceeding  to  ascertain  whether  an  offense  has  been  committed,  and  what  punishment 
is  to  be  inflicted,  the  army  must  be  governed  by  the  laws  and  usages  of  war  as  under 
stood  and  practiced  by  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world.  It  has  been  abundantly 
shown  that  these  tribunals  are  constituted  by  the  army  in  the  interest  of  justice  and 
mercy,  and  for  the  purpose  and  to  the  effect  of  mitigating  the  horrors  of  war. 

But  it  may  be  insisted  that  though  the  law  of  war,  being  part  of  the  law  of  nations,  con 
stitute  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  land,  that  those  laws  must  be  regarded  as  modified  so  far, 
and  whenever  they  come  in  direct  conflict  with  plain  constitutional  provisions.  The  follow 
ing  clauses  of  the  constitution  are  principally  relied  upon  to  show  the  conflict  betwixt  the 
laws  of  war  and  the  Constitution.  "  The  trial  of  all  crimes,  except  in  cases  of  impeach 
ment,  shall  be  by  the  jury,  and  such  trial  shall  be  held  in  the  State  where  the  said  crime 
shall  have  been  committed;  but  when  not  committed  within  any  State,  the  trial  shall  be 
at  such  place  or  places  as  the  Congress  may  by  law  have  directed."  "  No  person  shall 
be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital,  or  otherwise  infamous  crime,  unless  on  a  presentment  or 
indictment  of  a  grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising  in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  or  in  the 
militia  when  in  actual  service,  in  time  of  war  or  public  danger;  nor  shall  any  person  be 
subject  for  the  same  offense  to  be  twice  put  in  jeopardy  of  life  or  limb;  nor  shall  be  com 
pelled  in  any  criminal  case  to  be  witness  against  himself,  nor  be  deprived  of  life, 
liberty  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor  shall  private  property  be  taken  for 
public  use  without  just  compensation"  (Article  V.  of  the  amendments).  In  all  crim 
inal  prosecutions  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  of  a  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an 
impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district  wherein  the  crime  shall  have  been  committed, 
which  district  shall  have  prievously  been  ascertained  by  law,  and  be  informed  of  the 
nature  and  cause  of  the  accusation;  to  be  confronted  with  witnesses  against  him,  to 
have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining  witnessess  in  his  favor,  and  to  have  the  assist 
ance  of  counsel  for  his  defense  "  (Article  VI.  of  the  amendments).  These  provisions 
of  the  Constitution  are  intended  to  fling  around  the  life,  liberty  and  property  of  a  citizen 
all  the  guarantees  of  a  jury  trial. 

These  constitutional  guarantees  cannot  be  estimated  too  highly,  or  protected  too 
sacredly.  The  reader  of  history  knows  that  for  many  weary  ages  the  people  suffered  for 
the  want  of  them;  it  would  not  only  be  stupidity  but  madness  in  us  not  to  preserve  them. 
No  man  has  a  deeper  conviction  of  their  value,  or  a  more  sincere  desire  to  preserve  and 
perpetuate  them,  than  I  have.  Nevertheless,  these  sacred  and  exalted  provisions  of  the 
Constitution  must  not  be  read  alone  and  by  themselves,  but  must  be  read  and  taken  in 
connection  with  other  provisions.  The  Constitution  was  framed  by  great  men  —  men  of 
learning  and  large  experience,  and  it  is  a  wonderful  monument  of  their  wisdom.  Well 
versed  in  the  history  of  the  world,  they  knew  that  the  nation  for  which  they  were  fram 
ing  a  government  would,  unless  all  history  were  false,  have  wars  foreign  and  domestic. 
Hence  the  government  framed  by  them  is  clothed  with  the  power  to  make  and  carry 
on  a  war.  As  has  been  shown,  when  war  comes  the  laws  of  war  come  with  it.  In 
fractions  of  the  laws  of  nations  are  not  denominated  crimes,  but  offenses.  Hence  the 
expression  in  the  Constitution  that  Congress  shall  have  power  to  define  and  punish 
offenses  against  the  law  of  nations.  Many  of  the  offenses  against  the  law  of  nations 
for  which  a  man  may  lose  his  life,  his  liberty,  or  his  property  are  not  crimes.  It  is  an 
offense  against  the  law  of  nations  to  break  a  lawful  blockade,  and  for  which  a  forfeiture 
of  the  property  is  the  penalty,  and  yet  the  running  of  a  blockade  has  never  been  con 
sidered  a  crime;  to  hold  communication  or  intercourse  with  the  enemy  is  a  high  offense 


92  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

against  the  laws  of  war,  and  for  which  those  laws  prescribe  punishment,  and  yet  it  is 
not  a  crime  ;  to  act  as  a  spy  is  an  offense  against  the  laws  of  war,  and  the  penalty  for 
which,  in  all  ages,  has  been  death,  and  yet  it  is  not  a  crime  ;  to  violate  a  flag  of  truce 
is  an  offense  against  the  laws  of  war,  and  yet  it  is  not  a  crime  of  which  a  civil  court  can 
take  cognizance;  to  unite  with  banditti,  jayhawkers,  guerrillas,  or  any  other  unauthorized 
marauders  is  a  high  offense  against  the  laws  of  war  ;  the  offense  is  complete  when  the 
band  is  organized  or  joined.  The  atrocities  committed  by  such  a  band  do  not  constitute 
the  offenses,  but  make  the  reasons,  and  sufficient  reasons  they  are,  why  such  banditti 
are  denounced  by  the  laws  of  war.  Some  of  the  offenses  against  the  laws  of  war  are 
crimes,  and  some  are  not.  Because  they  are  crimes  they  do  not  cease  to  be  offenses 
against  the  laws  of  war;  nor  because  they  are  not  crimes  or  misdemeanors  do  they  fail 
to  be  offenses  against  the  laws  of  war.  Murder  is  a  crime,  and  the  murderer,  as  such, 
must  be  proceeded  against  in  the  form  and  manner  prescribed  by  the  Constitution.  In 
committing  the  murder  an  offense  may  also  have  been  committed  against  the  laws  of 
war;  for  that  offense  he  must  answer  to  the  laws  of  war,  and  the  tribunals  legalized 
l)y  that  law.  There  is,  then,  an  apparent  but  no  real  conflict  in  the  constitutional 
provisions. 

Offenses  against  the  laws  of  war  must  be  dealt  with  and  punished  under  the  Con 
stitution,  as  the  laws  of  war,  they  being  a  part  of  the  law  of  nations,  direct;  crimes 
must  be  dealt  with  and  punished  as  the  Constitution,  and  laws  made  in  pursuance  thereof, 
may  direct.  Congress  has  not  undertaken  to  define  the  code  of  war  nor  to  punish  offenses 
against  it.  In  the  case  of  a  spy,  Congress  has  undertaken  to  say  who  shall  be  deemed  a 
spy  and  how  he  shall  be  punished.  But  every  lawyer  knows  that  a  spy  was  a  well  known 
offender  under  the  laws  of  war,  and  that  under,  and  according,  to  these  laws  he  could  have 
been  tried  and  punished  without  an  act  of  Congress.  This  is  admitted  by  the  act  of  Con 
gress  when  it  says  that  he  shall  suffer  death  "  according  to  the  laws  and  usuages  of  war," 
The  act  is  simply  declaratory  of  the  law.  That  portion  of  the  Constitution  which  declares 
that  no  "  person  shall  be  deprived  of  his  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due  process  of 
law  "  has  such  direct  reference  to  and  connection  with  trials  for  crime  and  criminal 
prosecutions,  that  comment  upon  it  would  seem  to  be  unnecessary.  Trials  for  offenses 
against  the  laws  of  war  are  not  embraced  nor  intended  to  be  embraced  in  these  provisions. 
If  this  is  not  so,  then  every  man  who  kills  another  in  battle  is  a  murderer,  for  he  deprived 
a  "  person  of  life  without  that  due  process  of  law"  contemplated  by  this  provision; 
every  soldier  that  marches  across  a  field  in  battle  array  is  liable  to  an  action  for  trespass, 
because  he  does  so  without  that  due  process  of  law.  The  argument  that  flings  around 
offenders  against  the  laws  of  war  these  guarantees  of  the  Constitution  would  convict 
till  the  soldiers  of  our  army  of  murder;  no  prisoners  could  be  taken  and  held;  the 
army  could  not  move. 

The  absurd  consequences  that  would  of  necessity  flow  from  such  an  argument  show 
that  it  cannot  be  the  true  construction  —  it  cannot  be  what  was  intended  by  the 
framers  of  that  instrument.  One  of  the  prime  motives  for  the  Union  and  a  federal 
government  was  to  confer  the  powers  of  war.  If  any  provisions  of  the  Constitution 
are  so  in  conflict  with  the  power  to  carry  on  war  as  to  destroy  and  make  it  valueless, 
then  the  instrument,  instead  of  being  a  great  and  wise  one,  is  a  miserable  failure,  a/e/o 
de  se.  If  any  man  should  sue  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  the  returns  show  that  he 
belonged  to  the  army  or  navy,  and  was  held  to  be  tried  for  some  offense  against  the 
rules  and  articles  of  war,  the  writ  should  be  dismissed,  and  the  party  remanded  to 
answer  to  the  charges.  So,  in  time  of  war,  if  a  man  should  sue  out  a  writ  of  habeas 


QUESTIONS  PRELLMfNARY   TO    THE    TRIAL,  93, 

corpus,  and  it  is  made  appear  that  he  is  in  the  hands  of  'the  military  as  a  prisoner  of 
war,  the  writ  should  be  dismissed,  and  the  prisoner  remanded  to  be  disposed  of  as  the 
laws  and  usages  of  war  require.  If  the  prisoner  be  a  regular  unoffending  soldier  of 
the  opposing  party  to  the  war,  he  should  be  treated  with  all  the  courtesy  and  kindness 
consistent  with  safe  custody;  if  he  has  offended  against  the  laws  of  war  he  should 
have  such  a  trial,  and  be  punished  as  the  laws  of  war  require.  A  spy,  though  a. 
prisoner  of  war,  may  be  tried,  condemned,  and  executed  by  a  military  tribunal  without 
a  breach  of  the  Constitution.  A  bushwhacker,  a  jayhawker,  a  bandit,  a  war  rebel,  an 
assassin,  being  public  enemies,  may  be  tried,  condemned,  and  executed  as  offenders 
against  the  laws  of  war. 

The  soldier  that  would  fail  to  try  a  spy  or  a  bandit  after  his  capture  would  be  as 
derelict  in  duty  as  if  he  were  to  fail  to  capture;  he  is  as  much  bound  to  try  and  exe 
cute,  if  guilty,  as  he  is  to  arrest;  the  same  law  that  makes  it  his  duty  to  pursue  and 
kill  or  capture  makes  it  his  duty  to  try  according  to  the  usages  of  war.  The  judge  of 
a  civil  court  is  not  more  strongly  bound,  under  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  to  try  a 
criminal,  than  is  the  military  to  try  an  offender  against  the  laws  of  war.  The  fact  that 
the  civil  courts  are  open  does  not  affect  the  right  of  the  military  tribunal  to  hold  as  a 
prisoner  and  to  try.  The  civil  courts  have  no  more  right  to  prevent  the  military,  in 
time  of  war,  from  trying  an  offender  against  the  laws  of  war  than  they  have  a  right 
to  interfere  and  prevent  a  battle.  A  battle  may  be  lawfully  fought  in  the  very  presence 
of  the  court;  so  a  spy,  a  bandit,  or  other  offender  against  the  law  of  war,  may  be 
tried,  and  tried  lawfully,  when  and  where  the  civil  courts  are  open  and  transacting 
business.  The  law  of  war  authorizes  human  life  to  be  taken  without  legal  process;  or 
that  legal  process  contemplated  by  those  provisions  of  the  Constitution  that  are  relied 
upon  to  show  that  military  judicial  tribunals  are  unconstitutional. 

Wars  should  be  prosecuted  justly  as  well  as  bravely.  One  enemy  in  the  power  of 
another,  whether  he  be  an  open  or  a  secret  one,  should  not  be  punished  or  executed 
without  a  trial.  If  the  question  be  one  concerning  the  laws  of  war,  he  should  be  tried, 
by  those  engaged  in  the  war;  they,  and  they  only,  are  his  peers.  The  military  must 
decide  whether  he  is,  or  is  not,  an  active  participant  in  hostilities.  If  he  is  an  active 
participant  in  the  hostilities  it  is  the  duty  of  the  military  to  take  him,  without  warrant 
or  other  judicial  process,  and  dispose  of  him  as  the  laws  of  war  direct.  It  is  curious, 
to  see  one  and  the  same  mind  justify  the  killing  of  thousands  of  men  in  battle  because 
it  is  done  according  to  the  laws  of  war,  and  yet  condemning  that  same  law  when,  out 
of  regard  for  justice,  and  with  the  hope  of  saving  life,  it  orders  a  military  trial  before 
the  enemy  are  killed.  The  love  of  law,  of  justice,  and  the  wish  to  save  life  and  suffer 
ing  should  impel  all  good  men  in  time  of  war  to  uphold  and  sustain  the  existence  and 
actions  of  such  tribunals.  The  object  of  such  tribunals  is  obviously  intended  to  save 
life,  and  when  their  jurisdiction  is  confined  to  offenses  against  the  laws  of  war,  that  is 
their  effect.  They  prevent  indiscriminate  slaughter;  they  prevent  men  from  being 
punished  or  killed  on  mere  suspicion.  The  law  of  nations,  which  is  the  result  of  the 
wisdom  and  experience  of  ages,  has  decided  that  jayhawkers,  banditti,  etc.,  are 
offenders  against  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  war,  and  as  such  amenable  to  the  military. 
Our  Constitution  has  made  those  laws  a  part  of  the  law  of  the  land.  Obedience  to 
the  Constitution  and  the  law,  then,  requires  that  the  military  should  do  their  whole 
duty;  they  must  not  only  meet  and  fight  the  enemies  of  the  country  in  open  battle, 
but  they  must  kill  or  take  the  secret  enemies  of  the  country  and  try  and  execute  them, 
according  to  the  laws  of  war. 


94 


ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 


The  civil  tribunals  of  the  country  cannot  rightfully  interfere  with  the  military  in  the 
performance  of  their  high,  arduous,  and  perilous  but  lawful  duties.  That  Booth  and 
his  associates  were  secret  active  public  enemies  no  mind  that  contemplates  the  facts 
can  doubt.  The  exclamation  used  by  him  when  he  escaped  from  the  box  onto  the 
stage,  after  he  fired  the  fatal  shot,  sic  semper  tyrannis,  and  his  dying  message,  "  Say 
to  my  mother  that  I  died  for  my  country,"  show  that  he  was  not  an  assassin  from 
private  malice,  but  that  he  acted  as  a  public  foe.  Such  a  deed  is  expressly  laid  down 
in  Vattel,  in  his  work  on  the  law  of  nations,  as  an  offense  against  the  laws  of  war  and  a 
great  crime:  "  I  give  then  the  name  of  assassination  to  a  treacherous  murder,  whether 
the  perpetrators  of  the  deed  be  the  subjects  of  the  party  whom  we  cause  to  be  assas 
sinated  or  of  our  own  sovereign,  or  that  it  be  executed  by  any  other  emissary  introducing 
himself  as  a  suppliant,  a  refugee,  or  a  deserter,  or  in  fine  as  a  stranger  "  (Vattel,  339.) 
Neither  the  civil  nor  the  military  department  of  the  government  should  regard  itself 
as  wiser  and  better  than  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  that  exist  under  or  are  made  in 
pursuance  thereof.  Each  department  should,  in  peace  and  in  war,  confining  itself  to 
its  own  proper  sphere  of  action,  diligently  and  fearlessly  perform  its  legitimate  func 
tions,  and  in  the  mode  prescribed  by  the  Constitution  and  the  law.  Such  obedience  to 
and  observance  of  law  will  maintain  peace  when  it  exists,  and  will  soonest  relieve  the 
country  from  the  abnormal  state  of  war. 

My  conclusion,  therefore,  is,  that  if  the  persons  who  are  charged  with  the  assassina 
tion  of  the  President  committed  the  deed  as  public  enemies,  as  I  believe  they  did,  and 
whether  they  did  or  not  is  a  question  to  be  decided  by  the  tribunal  before  which 
they  are  tried,  they  not  only  can,  but  ought  to  be  tried  before  a  military  tribunal.  If 
the  persons- charged  have  offended  against  the  laws  of  war,  it  would  be  especially 
wrong  for  the  military  to  hand  them  over  to  the  civil  courts,  as  it  would  be  wrong  in  a 
civil  court  to  convict  a  man  of  murder  who  had  in  time  of  war  killed  another  in  battle. 

JAMES  SPEED, 

Attorney  General. 

The  foregoing  discussion  of  the  constitutional  aspects  of  the 
question  will  no  doubt  be  regarded  by  most  people  as  somewhat 
tedious,  and  perhaps  outside  of  the  legal  profession  will  be  read, 
much  less  carefully  studied,  by  but  few.  Yet  by  those  who  study 
it,  it  will  be  found  to  be  a  most  profound  and  masterly  analysis  of 
the  questions  involved,  viz.,  those  of  military  and  civil  jusridiction 
as  provided  for  in  the  Constitution,  and  to  fully  justify  the  opinion 
given  as  the  conclusion  of  the  argument. 

We  cannot  too  highly  revere  the  Constitution,  as  it  is  that 
which  gives  permanence,  security,  and  prosperity  to  our  national 
life ;  yet  there  is  a  power  greater  than  the  Constitution  —  a  power 
that  by  authority  expressed  or  understood  reserves  the  right  to 
amend,  alter,  or  abolish  its  provisions.  That  power  is  the 
sovereignty  that  resides  in  the  people.  Self  preservation  is  a 


QUESTIONS  PRELIMINARY    TO    THE    TRIAL.  95 

national,  as  much  as  an  individual  instinct,  and  self  preservation  is 
the  first  law  of  nature. 

A  government  that  has  a  right  to  live  has  a  right  to  the  use  of 
all  the  means  that  may  be  found  indispensable  to  the  perpetuation 
of  its  existence.  When  war  comes  the  laws  of  war  come  with  it 
as  a  matter  of  necessity ;  because  war,  being  an  abnormal  state  of 
society,  brings  with  it  conditions  that  render  inoperative  and  use 
less  the  means  provided  for  the  safety  and  security  of  the  life, 
liberty,  and  property  of  the  citizen,  as  guaranteed  by  the  Consti 
tution  and  laws.  These  interests  are  too  sacred  to  be  left  wholly 
unprotected ;  and  so  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world  have 
adopted  those  rules  which  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  mankind 
have  found  necessary  for  their  protection  in  time  of  war.  These 
rules,  or  laws,  we  denominate  the  laws  of  war.  If  the  experience 
of  mankind  should  dictate  modifications  of,  or  additions  to,  those 
rules  for  the  better  protection  of  these  sacred  interests  of  life, 
liberty,  and  property,  it  would  be  as  proper  to  amend  these  as  it 
is  proper  and  competent  to  amend  statute  law,  or  to  alter,  amend, 
or  abolish  constitutions.  Such  additions  or  alterations,  if  wisely 
made,  receive  the  sanction  of  mankind,  and  thus  become  a  part  of 
the  unwritten  law,  having  in  them  the  authority  of  this  sanction. 

In  dealing  with  this  question,  however,  it  was  not  found  neces 
sary  that  anything  new  should  be  devised,  as  the  laws  of  war  were 
found  to  authorize  all  that  was  necessary  to  the  adjudication  of 
the  question,  and  to  furnish  the  means  and  appliances  for  securing 
the  ends  of  justice. 

The  nature  of  the  offense  charged  against  these  prisoners 
placed  them  under  the  domain  of  martial  law,  as  they  were  shown 
by  their  own  acts  and  declarations  to  be  secret,  active  enemies  of 
the  government,  the  purpose  of  their  crime  being  to  give  aid  to 
the  existing  rebellion.  For  this  reason  the  government  left  them 
in  the  hands  of  the  military  to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  laws 
of  war ;  and  the  President,  being  ex-officio  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  army  and  navy,  ordered  the  Assistant  Adjutant  General  of  the 
army  to  detail  a  military  commission,  and  send  the  accuse  before 
it  for  a  speedy  trial. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

A   MILITARY  COMMISSION — ITS   NATURE,  CONSTITUTION,  DUTIES, 
AND   JURISDICTION. 

A  MILITARY  commission,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  judicial  tribunal 
authorized  by  and  constituted  under  the  laws  of  war  during  a 
state  of  war.  It  consists  of  a  definite  number  of  commissioned 
officers  designated  by  the  order  of  detail.  Its  jurisdiction  is 
limited,  and  its  duties  are  also  prescribed  by  that  order.  It  is 
a  military  court  detailed  to  try  offenders  against  the  laws  of  war, 
and  clothed  with  power  to  decide  both  on  the  law  and  evidence  in 
the  case,  and  to  prescribe  the  punishment  due  to  the  offense.  It 
is  constituted  to  act  under  a  presiding  officer,  who  is  also  desig 
nated  in  the  order  of  detail.  It  has  the  assistance  of  a  judge 
advocate  with  whom  it  consults  in  regard  to  any  questions  of  law 
or  of  evidence  that  may  arise. 

The  office  of  a  judge  advocate  does  not  exactly  correspond  with 
that  of  a  states  attorney  in  a  civil  court,  for  at  the  same  time  that 
it  is  his  duty  to  see  that  the  case  of  the  government  and  the  evi 
dence  are  fairly  presented,  it  is  as  much  his  duty  to  see  that  the 
accused  shall  have  a  fair  and  impartial  trial.  The  party  on  trial 
has  the  right  to  have  counsel  of  his  own  choice,  and  the  govern 
ment  must  secure  the  attendance  of  such  witnesses  in  his  defense 
as  he  may  designate.  The  rules  of  law  and  of  evidence  are  very 
nearly  the  same  as  those  which  prevail  in  the  civil  courts.  A  mili 
tary  commission  combines,  to  a  great  extent,  the  functions  of  both 
court  and  jury,  as  it  has  to  decide  on  questions  of  law  and  evi 
dence  as  a  court,  and  on  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  accused,  in 
the  light  of  law  and  evidence,  as  a  jury.  Again,  in  rendering  a 
sentence,  in  case  of  conviction,  it  exercises  the  functions  of  a  court. 
The  oath  taken  by  the  members  of  the  detail,  and  which  constitutes 
96 


A   MILITARY   COM  All  SSI  ON. 


97 


it  a  court,  requires  them  to  diligently  try  the  case  and  judge  and 
decide  impartially,  according  to  the  law  and  evidence.  Thus  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  rights  of  the  accused  are  carefully  guarded, 
and  every  precaution  taken  to  make  it  certain  that  justice  shall  be 
done.  This  is  the  purpose  as  much  in  the  constitution  of  a  mili 
tary  as  of  a  civil  court.  The  only  object  of  its  constitution  is  to 
protect  the  innocent  and  condemn  and  punish  the  guilty,  and  thus 
secure  the  ends  of  justice  and  mercy.  It  is  a  benign  provision  of 
military  law,  and  entitled  to  the  highest  respect  and  honor.  Its 
decisions  and  sentences,  however,  must  have  the  approval  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  give  them  validity. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

CONSTITUTION   OF   THE  COMMISSION,  AND    TRIAL. 

THE  order  of  the  President  required  the  Assistant  Adjutant 
General  of  the  army  to  detail  nine  competent  military  officers  to 
serve  as  a  commission  for  the  trial  of  the  parties  in  custody,  and 
also  that  the  Judge  Advocate  General  should  proceed  to  prefer 
charges  against  them  for  their  alleged  offenses,  and  bring  them  to 
trial  before  the  Commission,  under  the  conduct  of  the  Judge  Advo 
cate  General  as  the  recorder  thereof,  in  person,  and  assisted  by 
such  assistant,  or  special  judge  advocates  as  he  might  select,  and 
that  the  trial  should  be  conducted  with  all  diligence,  consistent 
with  the  ends  of  justice.  Brevet  Major  General  Hartranft  was 
assigned  to  duty,  by  the  President's  order,  as  Special  Provost 
Martial  General  for  the  occasion.  The  following  officers  were 

o 

designated  by  the  Assistant  Adjutant  General  as  the  detail  for  the 
court :  — 

Major  General  David  H.  Hunter,  U.S.V.,  to  preside  over  the 
Commission. 

Major  General  Lewis  Wallace,  U.S.V. 

Brevet  Major  General  August  V.  Kautz,  U.S.V. 

Brigadier  General  Albion  P.  Howe,  U.S.V. 

Brigadier  General  Robert  S.  Foster,  U.S.V. 

Brevet  Brigadier  General  Cyrus  Comstock,  U.S.V. 

Brigadier  General  T.  M.  Harris,  U.S.V. 

Brevet  Colonel  Horace  Porter,  Aide-de-Camp. 

Lieutenant  Colonel  David  R.  Clendennin,  Eighth  Illinois  Cavalry. 

Brigadier  General  Joseph  Holt,  Judge  Advocate  General  United 
States  Army,  Judge  Advocate  and  Recorder  of  the  Commission, 
aided  by  such  special  or  assistant  judge  advocates  as  he  might 
designate. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE   COMMISSION,   AND    TRIAL.  99 

The  details  for  the  Commission  were  made  on  the  6th  of  May, 
1865,  and  it  was  ordered  to  meet  at  Washington  City  on  the  8th 
of  May,  or  as  soon  thereafter  as  possible.  The  Commission  held 
its  first  meeting  on  the  9th  of  May,  at  ten  o'clock  A.M.,  all  the 
members  being  present,  also  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 

The  Hon.  John  A.  Bingham,  and  Brevet  Colonel  H.  L.  Burnett, 
Judge  Advocate,  were  introduced  by  the  Judge  Advocate  General 
as  assistant  or  special  judge  advocates.  The  accused,  David  E. 
Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Samuel  Arnold,  Lewis  Payne, 
Michael  O'Laughlin,  Edward  Spangler,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  and 
Samuel  A.  Mudd  were  brought  into  court,  and  being  asked 
whether  they  desired  to  employ  counsel  replied  in  the  affirma 
tive.  To  afford  them  an  opportunity  to  do  so,  the  court  adjourned 
to  meet  on  the  loth  day  of  May,  at  ten  o'clock  A.M.  At  the 
assembling  of  the  court  on  the  loth,  the  Judge  Advocate  read  a 
special  order  from  the  Assistant  Adjutant  General,  E.  D.  Townsend, 
relieving  General  Comstock  and  Brevet  Colonel  Porter  from  service 
on  the  Commission,  and  substituting  for  them  Brevet  Brigadier 
General  James  A.  Ekin,  U.  S.  V.,  and  Brevet  Colonel  C.  H. 
Tompkins,  U.  S.  A. 

All  the  members  being  present,  the  Commission  proceeded  to 
the  trial  of  the  parties  accused  as  above  named,  who  were  brought 
into  court,  and  having  the  order  detailing  the  Commission  read  to 
them,  they  were  asked  if  they  had  any  objection  to  any  member 
named  therein,  to  which  they  all  replied,  severally,  that  they  had 
not.  The  members  of  the  Commission  were  then  duly  sworn  by 
the  Judge  Advocate  General  in  the  presence  of  the  accused.  The 
Judge  Advocate  General  and  the  assistant  judge  advocates  were 
then  duly  sworn  by  the  president  of  the  court  in  the  presence  of 
the  accused. 

Ben  Pittman,  R.  Sutton,  D.  F.  Murphy,  R.  R.  Hitt,  J.  J. 
Murphy,  and  Edward  V.  Murphy  were  sworn  by  the  Judge 
Advocate  General,  in  the  presence  of  the  accused,  as  reporters  to 
the  Commission.  The  accused  were  then  severally  arraigned  on 
the  following  charge  and  specifications :  — 


IOQ  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Charge  and  Specifications  against  David  E.  Herold,  George  A* 
Atzerodt,  Lewis  Payne,  Michael  O*  Laughlin,  Edward  Spangler» 
Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  and  Samuel  A.  Mudd. 

Charge. — For  maliciously,  unlawfully,  and  traitorously,  and  in 
aid  of  the  existing  armed  rebellion  against  the  United  States  of 
America,  on  or  before  the  6th  day  of  March,  A.D.  1865,  and  on 
divers  other  days  between  that  day  and  the  I5th  day  of  April,  A.D. 
1865,  combining,  confederating,  and  conspiring  together  with  one 
John  H.  Surratt,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  Jefferson  Davis,  George  N. 
Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary, 
Clement  C.  Clay.  George  Harper,  George  Young,  and  others  un 
known,  to  kill  and  murder  within  the  military  department  of 
Washington,  and  within  the  fortified  and  intrenched  lines  thereof, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  late,  at  the  time  of  said  combining,  confederat 
ing,  and  conspiring  President  of  the  United  States  of  America  and 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof;  Andrew 
Johnson,  now  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  aforesaid ;  Wil 
liam  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States  aforesaid ; 
and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Lieutenant  General  of  the  army  of  the  United 
States  aforesaid,  then  in  command  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States  under  the  direction  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln ;  and  in 
pursuance  of,  and  in  prosecuting  said  malicious,  unlawful,  and 
traitorous  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and  in  aid  of  said  rebellion,  after 
wards,  to  wit,  on  the  I4th  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  within  the 
military  department  at  Washington  aforesaid,  and  within  the 
fortified  and  intrenched  lines  of  said  military  department,  together 
with  said  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt,  maliciously, 
unlawfully,  and  traitorously  murdering  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln, 
then  President  of  the  United  States  and  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  as  aforesaid ;  and  mali 
ciously,  unlawfully,  and  traitorously  assaulting  with  intent  to  kill 
and  murder  the  said  William  H.  Seward,  then  Secretary  of  State 
of  the  United  States  as  aforesaid ;  and  lying  in  wait  with  intent 
maliciously,  unlawfully,  and  traitorously  to  kill  and  murder  Andrew 
Johnson,  then  being  Vice-President  of  the  United  States;  and  the 
said  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then  being  Lieutenant  General,  and  in  com 
mand  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States  as  aforesaid. 


CONSTITUTION   OF   THE  COMMISSION,  AND   TRIAL.          lOi 

Specifications.  — In  this,  that  they,  the  said  David  E.  Herold, 
Edward  Spangler,  Lewis  Payne,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  Samuel 
Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  and  Samuel  A.  Mudd, 
together  with  the  said  John  H.  Surratt  and  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
incited  and  encouraged  thereunto  by  Jefferson  Davis,  George  N. 
Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary, 
Clement  C.  Clay,  George  Harper,  George  Young,  and  others  un 
known,  citizens  of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  and  who  were  then 
•engaged  in  armed  rebellion  against  the  United  States  of  America, 
/within  the  limits  thereof,  did,  in  aid  of  said  armed  rebellion,  on  or 
before  the  6th  day  of  March,  A.D.  1865,  and  on  divers  other  days 
and  times  between  that  day  and  the  I5th  day  of  April,  A.D. 
1865,  combine,  confederate,  and  conspire  together  at  Washington 
City,  within  the  military  department  of  Washington,  and  within  the 
intrenched  fortifications  and  military  lines  of  the  said  United  States, 
there  being  unlawfully,  maliciously,  and  traitorously  to  kill  and 
murder  Abraham  Lincoln,  then  President  of  the  United  States 
aforesaid,  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof; 
and  unlawfully,  maliciously,  and  traitorously  to  kill  and  murder 
Andrew  Johnson,  now  Vice-President  of  the  said  United  States, 
upon  whom,  on  the  death  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  after  the  4th 
day  of  March,  A.D.  1865,  the  office  of  President  of  the  said  United 
States  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof 
would  devolve ;  and  to  unlawfully,  maliciously,  and  traitorously 
Idll  and  murder  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then  Lieutenant  General,  and 
under  the  direction  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  command  of  the  armies 
of  the  United  States  aforesaid ;  and  unlawfully,  maliciously,  and 
traitorously  to  kill  and  murder  William  H.  Seward,  then  Secretary  of 
State  of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  whose  duty  it  was  by  law, 
upon  the  death  of  the  said  President  and  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States  aforesaid,  to  cause  an  election  to  be  held  for  electors 
of  President  of  the  United  States ;  the  conspirators  aforesaid, 
designing  and  intending  by  the  killing  and  murder  of  the  said 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson,  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  and 
William  H.  Seward,  as  aforesaid,  to  deprive  the  army  and  navy  of 
the  said  United  States  of  a  constitutional  commander-in-chief ;  and 
to  deprive  the  armies  of  the  United  States  of  their  lawful  com- 


102  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

mander ;  and  to  prevent  a  lawful  election  of  President  and  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States  aforesaid ;  and  by  the  means  afore 
said  to  aid  and  comfort  the  insurgents  engaged  in  armed  rebellion 
against  the  said  United  States  as  aforesaid,  and  thereby  to  aid  in 
the  subversion  and  overthrow  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
said  United  States. 

And  being  so  combined,  confederated  and  conspiring  together 
in  the  prosecution  of  said  unlawful  and  traitorous  conspiracy,  on 
the  night  of  the  I4th  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  at  the  hour  of 
about  ten  o'clock  and  fifteen  minutes  P.M.,  at  Ford's  Theatre  on 
Tenth  Street,  in  the  City  of  Washington,  and  within  the  military 
department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  one  of 
the  conspirators  aforesaid,  in  pursuance  of  said  unlawful  and  trai 
torous  conspiracy,  did  then  and  there  unlawfully,  maliciously, 
and  traitorously,  and  with  intent  to  kill  and  murder  the  said 
Abraham  Lincoln,  discharge  a  pistol  then  held  in  the  hands  of 
him,  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  same  being  then  loaded  with 
powder  and  a  leaden  ball,  against  and  upon  the  left  and  posterior 
side  of  the  head  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln ;  and  did  thereby 
then  and  there  inflict  upon  him,  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  then 
President  of  the  United  States  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
army  and  navy  thereof,  a  mortal  wound  whereof  afterwards,  to  wit, 
on  the  1 5th  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  at  Washington  City  aforesaid, 
the  said  Abraham  Lincoln  died ;  and  thereby,  then  and  there,  and 
in  pursuance  of  said  conspiracy,  the  said  defendants,  and  the  said 
John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt  did,  unlawfully,  traitor 
ously  and  maliciously,  and  with  intent  to  aid  the  rebellion  as  afore 
said,  kill  and  murder  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the 
United  States,  as  aforesaid.  And  in  further  prosecution  of  the 
unlawful,  and  traitorous  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and  of  the  murder 
ous  and  traitorous  intent  of  said  conspiracy,  the  said  Edward 
Spangler,  on  the  said  I4th  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  at  about  the 
same  hour  of  that  day  as  aforesaid,  within  the  said  military 
department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  did  aid  and  assist  the 
said  John  Wilkes  Booth  to  obtain  entrance  to  the  box  in  the  said 
theatre,  in  which  said  Abraham  Lincoln  was  sitting  at  the  time  he 
was  assaulted  and  shot  as  aforesaid  by  John  Wilkes  Booth ;  and 


CONSTITUTION  OF   THE   COMMISSION,   AND   TRIAL.          103 

also  did,  then  and  there,  aid  said  Booth  in  barring  and  obstructing 
the  door  of  the  box  of  said  theatre,  so  as  to  hinder  and  prevent 
any  assistance  to,  or  rescue  of,  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln  against 
the  murderous  assault  of  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth ;  and  did 
aid  and  abet  him  in  making  his  escape  after  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  been  murdered  in  manner  aforesaid. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  unlawful,  murderous,  and 
traitorous  conspiracy,  and  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  with  the 
intent  as  aforesaid,  the  said  David  E.  Herold  did,  on  the  night 
of  the  1 4th  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  within  the  military  depart 
ment  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  aid,  abet,  and  assist  the  said 
John  Wilkes  Booth  in  the  killing  and  murder  of  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  did,  then  and  there,  aid,  abet,  and  assist  him,  the 
said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  in  attempting  to  escape  through  the  mili 
tary  lines  aforesaid,  and  did  accompany  and  assist  the  said  John 
Wilkes  Booth  in  attempting  to  conceal  himself  and  escape  from 
justice  after  killing  and  murdering  said  Abraham  Lincoln  as 
aforesaid. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  unlawful  and  traitorous  con 
spiracy,  and  of  the  intent  thereof,  as  aforesaid,  the  said  Lewis 
Payne  did,  on  the  same  night  of  the  I4th  day  of  April,  A.D. 
1865,  about  the  same  hour  of  ten  o'clock  and  fifteen  minutes 
P.M.,  at  the  city  of  Washington,  and  within  the  military  depart 
ment  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  unlawfully  and  maliciously  make 
an  assault  upon  the  said  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State, 
as  aforesaid,  in  the  dwelling  house  and  bed-chamber  of  him,  the 
said  William  H.  Seward,  and  the  said  Payne  did,  then  and  there, 
with  a  large  knife  held  in  his  hand,  unlawfully,  traitorously,  and  in 
pursuance  of  said  conspiracy,  strike,  stab,  cut,  and  attempt  to  kill 
and  murder  the  said  William  H.  Seward,  and  did  thereby,  then 
and  there,  and  with  the  intent  aforesaid,  with  said  knife  inflict 
upon  the  face  and  throat  of  the  said  William  H.  Seward  divers 
grievous  wounds.  And  the  said  Lewis  Payne,  in  further  prosecu 
tion  of  said  conspiracy,  at  the  same  time  and  place  last  aforesaid, 
did  attempt,  with  the  knife  aforesaid,  and  a  pistol  held  in  his  hand, 
to  kill  and  murder  Frederick  W.  Seward,  Augustus  H.  Seward, 
Emrick  W.  Hansel  and  George  F.  Robinson,  who  were  striving  to 


104  ASSJSSLVArtOX   OF  LINCOLN. 

protect  and  rescue  the  said  William  H.  Seward  from  murder  by 
the  said  Lewis  Payne,  and  did,  then  and  there,  with  said  knife  and 
pistol  held  in  his  hands,  inflict  upon  the  head  of  the  said  Frederick 
W.  Seward,  and  upon  the  persons  of  said  Augustus  H.  Seward, 
Emrick  W.  Hansel,  and  George  F.  Robinson,  divers  grievous  and 
dangerous  wounds,  with  intent  then  and  there  to  kill  and  murder 
the  said  Frederick  W.  Seward,  Augustus  H.  Seward,  Emrick  W. 
Hansel,  and  George  F.  Robinson. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy  and  its  traitorous 
and  murderous  designs,  the  said  George  A.  Atzerodt  did,  on  the 
night  of  the  I4th  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  and  about  the  same  hour  of 
the  night  aforesaid,  within  the  military  department  and  military 
lines  aforesaid,  lie  in  wait  for  Andrew  Johnson,  then  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  with  the  intent  unlawfully  and  mali 
ciously  to  kill  and  murder  him,  the  said  Andrew  Johnson. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  the  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and  of 
its  murderous  and  treasonable  purposes  aforesaid,  on  the  nights  of 
the  1 3th  and  I4th  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  at  Washington  City,  and 
within  the  military  department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  the 
said  Michael  O'Laughlin  did,  then  and  there,  lie  in  wait  for 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then  lieutenant  general  and  commander  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States  as  aforesaid,  with  intent  then  and  there 
to  kill  and  murder  the  said  Ulysses  S.  Grant. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy,  the  said  Samuel 
Arnold  did,  within  the  military  department  and  the  military  lines 
aforesaid,  on  or  before  the  6th  day  of  March,  A.D.  1865,  and  on 
divers  other  days  and  times  between  that  day  and  the  I5th  day  of 
April,  A.D.  1865,  combine,  conspire  with,  and  aid,  counsel,  abet, 
comfort,  and  support  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  Lewis  Payne, 
George  A.  Atzerodt,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  and  their  confederates 
in  said  unlawful,  murderous  and  traitorous  conspiracy,  and  in  the 
execution  thereof  aforesaid. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy,  Mary  E.  Surratt 
did,  at  Washington  City  and  within  the  military  department  and 
military  lines  aforesaid,  on  or  before  the  6th  day  of  March,  A.D. 
1865,  and  on  divers  other  days  and  times  between  that  day  and 
the  2Oth  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  receive,  entertain,  harbor,  and 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE   COMMISSION,   AND   TRIAL.          105 

conceal,  aid  and  assist  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  David  E. 
Herold,  Lewis  Payne,  John  H.  Surratt,  Michael  O'Laughlin, 
George  A.  Atzerodt,  Samuel  Arnold,  and  their  confederates,  with 
knowledge  of  the  murderous  and  traitorous  conspiracy  afore 
said,  and  with  the  intent  to  aid,  abet,  and  assist  them  in  the  execu 
tion  thereof.,  and  in  escaping  from  justice  after  the  murder  of  the 
said  Abraham  Lincoln  as  aforesaid. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy  the  said  Samuel 
A.  Mudd  did  at  Washington  City  and  within  the  military  depart 
ment  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  on  or  before  the  6th  day  of 
March,  A.  D.  1865,  and  on  divers  other  days  and  times  between 
that  day  and  the  2Oth  day  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  advise,  encourage, 
receive,  entertain,  harbor  and  conceal,  aid  and  assist  the  said  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  David  E.  Herold,  Lewis  Payne,  John  H.  Surratt, 
Michael  O'Laughlin,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  and 
Samuel  Arnold,  and  their  confederates,  with  knowledge  of  the 
murderous  and  traitorous  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and  with  the  intent 
to  aid,  abet,  and  assist  them  in  the  execution  thereof  and  in  escaping 
from  justice  after  the  murder  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  pur 
suance  of  said  conspiracy  in  manner  aforesaid.  By  order  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States. 

J.  HOLT, 

Judge  Advocate  General. 

Charge  and  Specifications  Indorsed. 

"  Copy  of  the  within  charge  and  specification  delivered  to 
David  E.  Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Lewis  Payne,  Edward 
Spangler,  Michael  O'Laughlin;  Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt, 
and  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  on  the  8th  day  of  May,  1865. 

[Signed]  "  J.   F.    HARTRANFT, 

"  Brevet  Major  General  and 
Special  Provost  Marshal  General" 

The  accused  severally  plead  as  follows :  — 
To  the  specification,  "  Not  guilty." 
To  the  charge,  "  Not  guilty." 


106  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

The  Commission  then  proceeded  to  consider  the  rules  and 
regulations  by  which  its  proceedings  should  be  governed  or  con 
ducted.  The  prisoners  were  served,  as  we  have  seen,  with  a  due 
notice  of  the  offenses  with  which  they  were  charged,  and  required 
to  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  them.  They  were 
allowed  the  benefit  of  counsel  of  their  own  choice  and  compulsory 
attendance  of  witnesses  in  their  defense.  In  short,  they  were 
accorded  every  condition  that  was  necessary  to  a  fair  and  impar 
tial  trial.  In  this  case  the  only  qualification  required  of  the 
counsel  selected  or  employed  by  the  accused  in  their  defense  was, 
that  they  should  submit  or  file  evidence  of  having  taken  the  oath 
required  by  an  act  of  Congress,  or  should  take  said  oath  before 
being  permitted  to  appear  in  the  case. 

The  examination  of  witnesses  was  conducted  on  the  part  of  the  gov 
ernment  by  the  Judge  Advocate  and  by  counsel  on  the  part  of  the 
accused.  The  evidence  was  taken  down  by  short-hand  reporters  who 
were  sworn  to  record  the  evidence  faithfully  and  truly,  and  not  to 
communicate  the  same,  or  any  part  of  the  proceedings  on  the  trial, 
except  by  authority  of  the  presiding  officer.  They  were  required 
to  furnish  a  copy  of  the  evidence  taken  each  day  to  the  Judge 
Advocate,  and  also  a  copy  to  prisoners'  counsel.  No  reporters 
except  the  official  reporters  were  allowed  access  to  the  court 
room.  The  Judge  Advocate,  however,  was  allowed  to  furnish  to 
the  agent  of  the  Associated  Press,  at  his  discretion,  a  copy  of  such 
testimony  and  proceedings  as  might  be  published  during  the  trial 
without  injury  to  the  public  and  to  the  ends  of  justice.  All  other 
publication  of  the  evidence  and  of  the  proceedings  during  the  trial 
was  forbidden,  and  was  to  be  dealt  with  as  a  contempt  of  court. 
The  testimony  being  closed,  the  case  was  to  be  immediately 
summed  up  by  one  judge  advocate,  selected  by  the  Judge  Advo 
cate  General,  to  be  followed  or  opened,  if  the  Judge  Advocate 
General  so  selected,  by  counsel  for  the  prisoners,  and  the  argument 
closed  by  one  judge  advocate. 

The  argument  being  closed,  the  court  was  to  proceed  immedi 
ately  to  deliberate  and  make  its  determination.  The  provost 
marshal  was  required  to  have  the  prisoners  present  during  the 
trial,  and  was  held  responsible  for  their  safe  keeping.  Their 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE   COMMISSION,   AND    TRIAL.          \QJ 

counsel  was  permitted  to  hold  communication  with  them  in  the 
presence,  but  not  in  the  hearing,  of  the  guard.  Counsel  for  the 
prisoners  were  required  to  furnish  immediately  a  list  of  witnesses 
required  for  the  defense  of  their  respective  clients  to  the  Judge 
Advocate  General,  who  procured  their  attendance  in  the  usual 
manner.  At  the  meeting  of  the  Commission  on  May  the  iith, 
Samuel  A.  Mudd  asked  permission  to  introduce  Frederick  Stone, 
Esq.,  and  Thomas  Ewing,  Jr.,  Esq.,  as  his  counsel.  Mary  E. 
Surratt  asked  to  introduce  Frederick  Aiken,  Esq.,  and  John  W. 
Clampitt,  Esq.,  as  her  counsel,  which  applications  were  granted 
by  the  court.  At  its  meeting  on  May  I2th,  David  E.  Herold 
asked  to  introduce  Frederick  Stone,  Esq.,  as  his  counsel;  Samuel 
Arnold  asked  to  introduce  Thomas  Ewing,  Jr.,  Esq.,  as  his 
counsel ;  George  A.  Atzerodt  asked  to  introduce  William  E. 
Doster,  Esq.,  as  his  counsel ;  Michael  O'Laughlin  applied  for 
permission  to  introduce  Walter  S.  Cox,  Esq.,  as  his  counsel ; 
Lewis  Payne  asked  to  introduce  William  E.  Doster,  Esq.,  as  his 
counsel ;  Edward  Spangler  applied  for  permission  to  introduce 
Thomas  Ewing,  Jr.,  Esq.,  as  his  counsel;  which  applications  were 
granted,  and  Messrs.  Doster  and  Cox,  having  first  taken  the  oath 
prescribed  by  act  of  Congress  approved  July  2d,  1862,  in  open, 
court,  appeared  accordingly.  The  accused,  Mary  E.  Surratt, 
applied  for  permission  to  introduce  Hon.  Reverdy  Johnson  as 
additional  counsel  for  her,  and  permission  being  granted,  he  ap 
peared  accordingly.  The  admission  of  Mr.  Johnson  was  objected 
to  by  the  author,  a  member  of  the  court,  on  the  ground  that  he 
had  very  light  views  of  the  obligations  of  an  oath,  and  in  proof  of 
this,  reference  was  made  to  an  open  letter  to  the  people  of  Mary 
land,  written  a  few  months  previously  by  the  honorable  gentleman, 
in  which  he  advised  them  to  take  the  oath  prescribed  by  the  late 
Constitutional  Convention  of  that  State  as  a  qualification  for  the 
exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage  in  the  adoption  or  rejection  of  the 
amended  Constitution,  in  which  letter  he  took  the  ground  that  as 
the  convention  had  transcended  its  power  in  prescribing  such  an 
oath,  which  in  effect  was  intended  to  exclude  all  disloyal  persons 
from  participation  in  this  right  of  citizenship,  it  carried  in  it  no 
moral  obligation ;  and  that  they  might  therefore  take  it  as  a 


IOS  ASSASSINATION    OF  LINCOLN. 

matter  of  indifference,  even  though  they  were  disloyal.  The  hon 
orable  gentleman  at  first  treated  this  objection  to  his  appearance 
with  great  hauteur  of  manner,  and  appeared  to  be  astonished  that 
an  obscure  officer  in  the  army,  whom  nobody  knew,  should  pre 
sume  to  arraign  a  man  in  his  position  as  incompetent  to  appear 
before  such  a  court.  He  was  answered  by  the  president  of  the 
Commission,  who  said,  that  had  not  General  Harris  raised  this 
objection  he  had  intended  doing  so  himself.  The  honorable 
gentleman,  seeing  that  there  was  danger  of  his  exclusion  from  the 
court,  and  that  it  could  not  be  bluffed,  immediately  came  down 
from  his  high  horse,  and  in  a  very  respectful  manner  entered  into 
a  lengthy  explanation  of  the  letter  referred  to,  which  explanation 
did  not  put  a  better  face  on  the  matter,  but  as  he  in  closing  em 
phatically  declared  that  he  did  recognize  the  moral  obligation  of 
an  oath,  the  objection  was  withdrawn,  and  he  was  admitted  and 
appeared  accordingly.  The  accused  severally  then  asked,  for  the 
time,  to  withdraw  their  plea  of  "  Not  guilty,"  heretofore  filed,  so 
that  they  might  plead  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court. 

This  being  granted,  they  offered  the  following  plea  to  the  juris 
diction  of  the  court :  — 

" ,  one  of  the  accused,  for  plea  says  that  this  court 

has  no  jurisdiction  in  the  proceedings  against  him,  because  he  says 
he  is  not,  and  has  not  been,  in  the  military  service  of  the  United 
States. 

"And  for  further  plea,  the  said says  that  loyal  civil 

courts,  in  which  all  the  offenses  charged  are  triable,  exist, 
and  are  in  full  and  free  operation  in  all  the  places  where  the 
several  offenses  charged  are  alleged  to  have  been  committed. 

"And  for  further  plea,  the  said says  that  the  court  has 

no  jurisdiction  in  the  matter  of  the  alleged  conspiracy,  so  far  as  it 
is  charged  to  have  been  a  conspiracy  to  murder  Abraham  Lincoln, 
late  President  of  the  United  States,  and  William  H.  Seward,  Secre 
tary  of  State,  because  he  says  said  alleged  conspiracy,  and  all  acts 
alleged  to  have  been  done  in  the  formation  and  in  the  execution 
thereof,  are  in  the  charge  and  specifications  alleged  to  have  been 
committed  in  the  City  of  Washington,  in  which  city  are  loyal  civil 
courts  in  full  operation,  in  which  all  said  offenses  charged  are 
triable. 


CONSTITUTION  OF   THE    COMMISSION,   AND    TRIAL.          109 

"And  the  said for  further  plea  says  this  court  has  no 

jurisdiction  in  the  matter  of  the  crime  of  murdering  Abraham 
Lincoln,  late  President  of  the  United  States,  and  William  H. 
Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  because  he  says  said  crimes  and  acts 
done  in  execution  thereof  are,  in  the  charge  and  specifications, 
alleged  to  have  been  committed  in  the  City  of  Washington,  in 
which  city  are  loyal  civil  courts,  in  full  operation,  in  which  said 
crimes  are  triable." 

In  answer  to  this  plea  the  judge  advocate  presented  the  follow 
ing  replication :  — 

"  Now  come  the  United  States,  and   for  answer  to   the   special 

plea  by  one  of  the  defendants, ,  plead  to  the  jurisdiction 

of  the  Commission  in  this  case,  say  that  this  Commission  has 
jurisdiction  in  the  premises  to  try  and  determine  the  matters  in 
the  charge  and  specifications  alleged  and  set  forth  against  the 

said  defendant, . 

"J.  HOLT, 
"  Judge  Advocate  General'' 

The  court  was  then  cleared  for  deliberation,  and  on  being  re 
opened  the  Judge  Advocate  announced  that  the  plea  of  the 
accused  had  been  overruled  by  the  Commission.  The  accused 
then  made  application  for  severance  as  follows :  — 

" ,  one  of  the  accused,  asks  that  he  be  tried  separate 

from  those  who  are  charged  with  him,  for  the  reason  that  he 
believes  his  defense  will  be  greatly  prejudiced  by  a  joint  trial." 

The  Commission  overruled  the  application  for  severance.  The 
accused  then  severally  plead  :  — 

To  the  specifications,  "  Not  guilty." 

To  the  charge,  "  Not  guilty." 

The  considerations  on  which  the  motion  for  severance  was  over 
ruled  were,  that  the  charge  alleged  a  conspiracy  on  the  part  of 
the  persons  accused  and  on  trial,  with  others  unknown,  unlawfully, 
maliciously,  and  traitorously  to  kill  and  murder  the  President  and 
others.  The  fact  of  entering  into  a  conspiracy  to  do  unlawful  acts 
gives  to  the  associated  body,  in  law,  an  individuality ;  personality 


HO  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

is  merged  in  the  common  purpose  of  those  thus  combining  them 
selves  together,  and  so  the  declaration  or  act  of  any  one  of  them, 
touching  the  accomplishment  of  the  common  purpose,  becomes 
the  declaration  or  act  of  all.  The  guilt  is  equally  shared  by  all. 
If  the  government  could  not  sustain  the  charge  of  a  conspiracy, 
then  none  of  the  accused  could  be  found  guilty  of  entering  into  a 
conspiracy  as  alleged.  The  fact  of  a  conspiracy  being  established, 
it  only  remained  to  be  shown  in  each  case  that  the  accused  was  a 
member  of  it ;  proving  this,  he  would  be  held  to  be  a  sharer  in 
the  guilt,  although  not  present  at  the  commission  of  the  crime ;  but 
failing  to  establish  the  fact  of  his  belonging  to  the  conspiracy,  his 
innocence  must  be  legally  admitted.  In  other  words  he  could  not 
be  found  guilty.  There  can  in  law  be  no  severance  of  an  individu 
ality;  and  so  the  application  for  a  separate  trial  was  denied,  or 
overruled. 

On  the  demurrer  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  the  Commis 
sion  held  that  it  could  not  admit  this  to  be  a  question  that  it  could 
properly  take  under  its  consideration.  To  the  executive  depart 
ment  of  the  government  alone  belonged  the  decision  of  the  ques 
tion  as  to  the  kind  of  trial  that  the  accused  should  have ;  and  the 
President,  after  maturely  considering  it  in  the  light  of  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  related  facts,  and  after  having  submitted  it  to  his 
Attorney  General  for  his  opinion,  accepting  that  opinion  as  the  cor 
rect  conclusion  of  his  very  exhaustive  argument,  embracing  all 
the  Constitutional  questions  involved,  had  determined  that  these 
parties  were  offenders  against  the  laws  of  war,  as  their  offense 
was  the  act  of  secret,  active  participants  in  the  existing  hostilities, 
and  committed  with  a  deep  political  intent,  the  purpose  of  which 
was  to  give  aid  to  the  existing  rebellion,  and  so,  justly,  under  the 
Constitution,  subjecting  them  to  law  martial,  and  trial  by  a  mili 
tary  commission.  The  President,  being  ex-officio  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  had  the  right  to  order  a 
detail  of  officers  to  constitute  such  court,  and  by  order  to  specify 
the  duties  required  of  them.  Their  duty  as  officers  of  the  army 
required  of  them  simply  obedience  to  the  orders  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  and  to  those  over  them  in  the  organization  of 
the  military  arm  of  the  government.  To  this  they  were  bound  by 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE    COMMISSION,   AND    TRIAL,          \  \  \ 

the  solemn  obligations  of  their  official  oath.  To  have  entertained 
this  question  would  have  been  an  act  of  disobedience,  subjecting 
them  to  discipline  ;  to  have  refused  to  serve  would  have  been  an 
act  of  mutiny.  The  officers  composing  this  court  were,  accord 
ing  to  the  biographers  of  President  Lincoln  (Nicolay  and  Hay) 
"  not  only  officers  high  in  rank,  but  of  unusual  weight  of  charac 
ter  "  ;  they  had  been  thoroughly  schooled  in  military  discipline, 
and  so  recognized  the  duty  of  obedience  to  orders  as  the  first  duty 
of  a  soldier.  It  was  not  any  part  of  their  duty  to  discuss  the  wis 
dom,  propriety,  or  legality  of  an  order  before  entering  upon  the 
act  of  obedience.  Their  duty  was  simply  to  obey,  and  for  this 
they  were  properly  held  responsible.  The  order  of  detail  assigned 
to  them  the  specific  duty  of  trying  the  accused  under  the  charge 
and  specifications  prepared  against  them  by  the  government,  and 
so,  as  loyal,  obedient  soldiers,  loving  their  country  and  having 
faith  in  its  government,  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  enter  upon 
and  discharge  the  duties  for  which  they  had  been  detailed. 

As  before  stated,  the  Hon.  Reverdy  Johnson,  a  United  States 
Senator  from  Maryland,  volunteered  to  defend  Mrs.  Mary  E. 
Surratt,  selecting  her  for  his  client  that  he  might  have  the  benefit, 
for  the  purpose  of  his  argument,  of  the  sympathy  which  we  all 
naturally  feel  for  her  sex.  It  was  not  his  purpose  to  defend  her 
any  more  than  any  other  one  or  all  of  the  prisoners,  as  he 
addressed  himself  simply  to  the  task  of  arguing  the  question  of 
jurisdiction.  His  real  object  was,  evidently,  to  get  himself  before 
the  Commission,  that  he  might  arraign  the  martyred  President  before 
the  country  and  before  the  world,  and  denounce  his  acts  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  war  as  unconstitutional  and  tyrannical  usurpa 
tions  of  power.  He  made  a  lengthy,  and  from  the  stand-point 
of  the  right  of  secession,  able  argument  against  the  right  to  try 
these  cases  before  a  military  tribunal.  The  Commission  was  made 
up  largely  of  men  sufficiently  versed  in  constitutional  law,  as  well 
as  the  laws  of  nations  and  of  war,  to  be  little  influenced  by  his 
sophistries.  Their  position  towards  the  government  on  these  ques 
tions  had  placed  them  where  they  were,  as  officers  in  its  military 
service,  and  they  could  not  be  swerved  from  the  loval  discharge  of 

•*  *  o 

their  duty.     The  reply  of  the  Hon.  John  A.  Bingham  to  the  sophis- 


112  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

tries  of  the  honorable  senator,  is  a  masterpiece  of  logical  reason 
ing,  as  also  of  forensic  eloquence  and  legal  acumen,  and  will  well 
repay  the  careful  study,  not  only  of  every  student  of  law,  but  of 
every  young  man  who  has  an  ambition  to  become  intelligent  in 
matters  of  public  interest,  involving  the  rights,  duties,  and  priv 
ileges  of  the  citizen  in  time  of  peace  and  in  time  of  war. 

It  will  be  found  not  only  thoroughly  learned  and  exhaustive  of 
all  questions  involved,  as  a  legal  argument,  but  also  the  very 
embodiment  of  patriotic  devotion  to  our  free  institutions  of 
government,  and  to  the  cause  of  civil  liberty,  justice,  humanity, 
and  moral  progress. 

The  Commission  was  diligently  engaged  in  the  trial  of  the 
prisoners  from  the  iith  day  of  May  until  the  3Oth  day  of  June, 
a  period  of  about  seven  weeks  being  consumed  in  hearing  the  testi 
mony  and  the  motions  and  arguments  of  counsel.  As  I  have 
given,  in  narrative  form,  the  facts  proven  against  each  of  the 
accused,  as  they  stood  unimpeached  and  uncontroverted  by  testi 
mony  given  in  defense,  in  giving  the  history  of  their  arrests,  it  is 
unnecessary  that  I  should  give  it  formally,  as  it  appears  upon  the 
record  of  the  trial. 

After  maturely  deliberating  on  the  evidence  adduced  in  the  case 
of  each  of  the  accused,  the  findings  of  the  Commission  were  as 
follows :  — 

In  the  case  of  David  E.  Herold :  Of  the  specification  guilty ; 
except  (<  combining,  confederating,  and  conspiring  with  Edward 
Spangler,"  as  to  which  part  thereof  not  guilty.  Of  the  charge 
guilty;  except  the  words  of  the  charge,  "  combining,  confederat 
ing,  and  conspiring  with  Edward  Spangler,"  as  to  which  not  guilty. 
And  the  Commission  did,  therefore,  sentence  him,  the  said  David 
E.  Herold,  to  be  hanged  by  the  neck  until  he  be  dead,  at  such  time 
and  place  as  the  President  of  the  United  States  should  direct,  two- 
thirds  of  the  Commission  concurring  therein. 

In  the  case  of  George  A.  Atzerodt :  After  mature  considera 
tion  of  the  evidence  adduced,  the  Commission  found  the  accused, 
of  the  specification  guilty  ;  except  "  combining,  confederating,  and 
conspiring  with  Edward  Spangler,"  of  this  not  guilty.  Of  the 
charge  guilty ;  except  "  combining,  confederating,  and  conspiring 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE   COMMISSION,   AND    TRIAL.          \  \  3 

with  Edward  Spangler,"  of  this  not  guilty.  And  the  sentence  of 
the  Commission  was  that  he  be  hanged  by  the  neck  until  he  be 
dead,  at  such  time  and  place  as  the  President  of  the  United  States 
might  direct,  two-thirds  of  the  Commission  concurring  therein. 

In  the  case  of  Lewis  Payne,  the  Commission  found  him,  of  the 
specifications  guilty;  of  the  charge  guilty;  with  the  same  excep 
tions  as  in  the  case  of  Atzerodt ;  and  sentenced  him  to  be  hung  as 
above,  two-thirds  of  the  Commission  concurring  therein. 

In  the  case  of  Mary  E.  Surratt,  the  Commission  found  her,  of 
the  specifications  guilty,  and  of  the  charge  guilty ;  except  as  to 
"receiving,  sustaining,  harboring,  and  concealing  Samuel  Arnold 
and  Michael  O'Laughlin  "  ;  and  except  as  to  "  combining,  con 
federating,  and  conspiring  with  Edward  Spangler,"  and  of  this  not 
guilty ;  and  sentenced  her  to  be  hanged  by  the  neck  until  she  be 
dead,  at  such  time  and  place  as  the  President  of  the  United  States 
should  direct,  two-thirds  of  the  Commission  concurring  therein. 

In  the  case  of  Michael  O'Laughlin,  the  Commission  found  him 
guilty  of  the  specifications,  except  the  words  thereof,  "  And  in 
further  prosecution  of  the  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and  of  its 
murderous  and  treasonable  purposes  aforesaid,  on  the  night  of  the 
1 3th  of  April,  A.D.  1865,  at  Washington  City,  and  within  the  mili 
tary  department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  the  said  Michael 
O'Laughlin  did,  then  and  there,  lie  in  wait  for  Ulysses  S.  Grant, 
then  Lieutenant  General  and  commander  of  the  armies  of  the 
United  States,  with  intent,  then  and  there,  to  kill  and  murder  the 
said  Ulysses  S.  Grant";  of  said  words  not  guilty.  Of  the  charge 
guilty,  except  "combining,  confederating,  and  conspiring '  with 
Edward  Spangler";  of  this  not  guilty.  O'Laughlin  was  sentenced 
by  the  Commission  to  be  imprisoned  at  hard  labor  for  life,  at  such 
place  as  the  President  might  direct,  two-thirds  of  the  Commission 
concurring  therein.  In  the  case  of  Edward  Spangler,  the  Com 
mission  found  him  guilty  of  the  charge  and  specifications,  with 
exceptions  similar  to  the  above,  and  sentenced  him  to  be 
imprisoned  at  hard  labor  for  the  term  of  six  years,  at  such  place 
as  the  President  might  direct,  two-thirds  concurring  therein. 

In  the  case  of  Samuel  Arnold,  the  decision  of  the  Commission 
was,  that  he  was  guilty  of  the  charge  and  specifications,  with 


114  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

exceptions  similar  to  the  above,  and  that  he  should  be  imprisoned 
for  life  at  hard  labor  at  such  place  as  the  President  should  direct, 
two-thirds  concurring. 

In  the  case  of  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  the  Commission  found  him 
guilty  of  the  charge  and  specifications,  with  similar  exceptions,  as 
the  evidence  required,  and  sentenced  him  to  be  imprisoned  at 
hard  labor  for  life,  as  above. 

The  findings  and  sentences  of  the  Commission  were  approved  by 
the  President,  and  those  of  the  accused  who  were  sentenced  to  im 
prisonment  at  hard  labor  were  ordered  by  him  to  be  sent  to  the 
military  prison  at  the  Dry  Tortugas,  and  they  were  transported 
there  accordingly. 

In  the  case  of  those  who  were  sentenced  to  death,  the  President 
ordered  their  execution  to  take  place  on  the  /th  day  of  July,  one 
week  after  they  were  convicted  and  sentenced  by  the  court,  and 
they  were  accordingly  executed. 

After  the  conviction  and  sentence  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  Judge 
Bingham,  at  the  request  of  a  member  of  the  court,  drew  up  the 
following  petition  :  "To  the  President :  The  undersigned,  members 
of  the  military  commission  appointed  to  try  the  persons  charged 
with  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  etc.,  respectfully  represent 
that  the  Commission  have  been  constrained  to  find  Mary  E. 
Surratt  guilty  upon  the  testimony  of  the  assassination  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  late  President  of  the  United  States,  and  to  pronounce 
upon  her,  as  required  by  law,  the  sentence  of  death  ;  but  in  con 
sideration  of  her  age  and  sex,  the  undersigned  pray  your  Excel 
lency,  if  it  is  consistent  with  your  sense  of  duty,  to  commute  her 
sentence  to  imprisonment  for  life  in  the  penitentiary." 

This  petition  was  signed  by  five  members  (a  majority)  of  the 
court,  and  although  not  constituting  a  part  of  the  record,  was  pre 
sented  along  with  the  record  by  the  Judge  Advocate  General  to 
the  President.  The  record  was  carefully  considered  and  discussed 
by  the  President  and  a  full  cabinet,  when,  without  a  dissenting 
voice,  the  sentences  of  the  Commission  were  confirmed,  and  the 
prayer  of  the  petition  was  rejected. 

Mrs.  Surratt's  counsel  then  sued  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to 
take  her  out  of  the  hands  of  the  military  authorities,  and  thus  to 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  COMMISSION,  AND  TRIAL.       \  \  5 

secure  for  her  a  civil  trial,  or  perhaps  an   entire  release,  after  the 
President  had  approved  the  findings  and  sentence  of  the  court. 

The  President  had  set  the  /th  day  of  July,  1865,  as  the  day  for 
the  execution  of  those  who  had  been  sentenced  to  death,  and  had 
given  orders  accordingly  to  the  military  officer  under  whose 
charge  they  had  been  placed.  On  the  forenoon  of  that  day,  on 
the  application  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  counsel,  Judge  Wylie,  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  endorsed  on  her 
application :  — 

"  Let  the  writ  issue  as  prayed,  returnable  before  the  criminal  court  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  now  sitting  at  the  hour  of  ten  o'clock  A.M.,  this  7th  day  of  July,  1865. 

[Signed]  "ANDREW  WYLIE, 

"A  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 
"July  ;th,  1865." 

This  writ  was  served  on  General  Hancock,  who  had  custody  of, 
and  was  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  prisoners,  and  who, 
accompanied  by  Attorney  General  Speed,  appeared  before  Judge 
Wylie  in  obedience  to  the  writ,  on  which  the  following  return  was 

made :  — 

HEADQUARTERS  MIDDLE  MILITARY  DIVISION, 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  July  7th,  1865. 

To  Hon.  ANDREW  WYLIE,  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia  :  — 

I  hereby  acknowledge  the  service  of  the  writ  hereto  attached  and  return  the  same, 
and  respectfully  say  that  the  body  of  Mary  E.  Surratt  is  in  my  possession  under  and  by 
virtue  of  an  order  of  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States,  and  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  for  the  purposes  in  said  order  expressed,  a  copy  of 
which  is  hereto  attached  and  made  part  of  this  return;  and  that  I  do  not  produce  said 
body  by  reason  of  the  order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  indorsed  upon  said 
writ,  to  which  reference  is  hereby  respectfully  made,  dated  July  7th,  1865, 

The  order  of  the  President,  made  a  part  of  the  above  return,  is 
as  follows :  — 

EXECUTIVE  OFFICE,  July  7th,  1865,  10  o'clock  A.M. 

To  Major  General  W.  S.  HANCOCK,  Commander,  etc.:  — 

I,  ANDREW  JOHNSON,  President  of  the  United  States,  do  hereby  declare  that  the 
•writ  of  habeas  corpus  has  been  heretofore  suspended  in  such  cases  as  this,  and  I  do 
hereby  especially  suspend  this  writ,  and  direct  that  you  proceed  to  execute  the  order 
heretofore  given  upon  the  judgment  of  the  military  commission,  and  you  will  give  this 
order  in  return  to  the  writ. 

ANDREW  JOHNSON,   President. 


Il6  ASSASSIATATIOAr   OF  LINCOLN. 

The  court  ruled  that  it  yielded  to  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  by  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

Thus  ended  the  contest  over  the  jurisdiction  of  the  military 
commission.  It  has  never  been  revived  with  success  and  never 
will  be,  as  the  sound  sense  of  every  patriotic  American,  whose 
heart  beats  true  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  justice,  good  morals,  and 
good  government,  rests  on  the  arguments  that  determined  this 
trial  by  a  military  commission  as  its  sanction,  both  by  our  inimita 
ble  Constitution  and  by  the  lawrs  of  war.  In  the  light  of  these 
arguments,  this  trial  will  ever  hereafter  have  the  authority  of  a 
precedent,  should  another  crisis  arise  involving  the  principles  on 
which  it  rests.  It  was  only  those  whose  sympathies  were  with  the 
rebellion  who  demurred  to  it  at  the  time,  and  whose  yelp  is 
occasionally  heard,  even  at  this  late  day,  but  on  a  very  cold  trail. 

The  sentence  of  the  Commission  was  executed  on  the  /th  day  of 
July,  1865,  in  accordance  with  the  President's  order,  by  General 
Hancock,  in  the  yard  of  the  old  Capitol  prison.  Thus  the  trial 
and  the  execution  were  alike  at  the  hands  of  the  military ;  and 
thus  the  authority  and  justice  of  the  government  were  vindicated, 
and  a  solemn  warning  was  given  to  all  traitors  to  desist  from 
schemes  of  assassination ;  a  warning  which,  as  we  shall  yet  see, 
taught  them  a  salutary  lesson,  and  in  some  measure  brought  them 
to  their  senses. 

We  shall  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  persons  just  now  referred 
to,  some  of  whom  were  known,  but  many  were  unknown.  Before 
doing  this,  however,  it  seems  due  to  our  history  at  this  point  to 
say  a  word  about  Booth's  co-conspirator,  John  H.  Surratt,  who 
would  seem  to  have  dropped  out  of  sight  in  the  narrative  I  have 
given  of  the  arrest  and  trial  of  the  conspirators. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  he  carried  the  dispatches  from  the 
Richmond  government  to  the  Canada  conspirators,  sanctioning  the 
arrangements  that  had  been  made  by  them  to  secure  the  assassi 
nations  they  had  planned ;  that  he  arrived  with  these  dispatches  at 
Montreal  on  the  6th  of  April ;  and  that  the  execution  of  the 
plot  was  at  once  entered  upon,  those  of  the  conspirators  who 
were  to  take  an  active  part  preparing  immediately  and  starting  for 
Washington,  boasting  openly  of  what  they  would  do  when  they 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE    COMMISSION,   AXD    TRIAL.          \\j 

should  have  reached  their  destination.  Some  of  these  were  known, 
and  will  be  hereafter  referred  to  by  name ;  but  there  would  seem 
to  have  been  a  number  of  them  whose  names  were  never  learned. 
John  H.  Surratt  came  back,  either  alone  or  in  company  with  some 
of  them.  That  he  was  in  Washington,  aiding  and  abetting,  on  the 
day  and  night  of  the  assassination,  was  positively  sworn  to  by  one 
of  the  witnesses  who  was  well  acquainted  with  him  ;  and  from  the 
concurrence  of  testimony,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  he 
was  one  of  the  two  parties  with  whom  Booth  was  in  communica 
tion  on  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  the  theatre,  as  heretofore  narrated, 
and  that  he  acted  as  monitor,  calling  the  time  for  Booth.  He 
seems,  however,  to  have  had  the  bumps  both  of  cautiousness  and 
secretiveness  largely  developed,  and  so  kept  himself  as  much  as 
possible  out  of  sight  in  the  transaction  in  which  he  was  no  doubt, 
at  the  same  time,  an  active  participant.  He  most  probably  left 
Washington  on  the  first  train  after  the  work  was  done,  as  we  have 
no  trace  of  him  again  until  we  find  him  at  Burlington,  Vt.,  on 
his  way  to  Canada,  on  the  1 8th  of  April.  As  it  is  my  purpose  to 
•devote  a  chapter  or  two  to  his  case  especially,  I  shall  not,  at  this 
time,  pursue  it  any  further ;  but  as  he  was  undoubtedly  a  very 
active  and  important  factor  in  the  conspiracy,  and  escaped  justice 
merely  by  escaping  capture  at  the  time,  and  so  securing  a  civil 
trial  after  the  war  was  over,  a  history  of  his  case  naturally  comes 
within  the  scope  of  my  plan,  and  will  serve  to  illustrate  what  I  have 
already  said  in  relation  to  the  existing  facts  in  regard  to  the  pop 
ulation  of  the  District  of  Columbia  that  would  have  rendered  a 
civil  trial  futile  in  the  cases  brought  before  the  Commission. 


CHAPTER  X. 

EVIDENCE  IN  REGARD  TO  ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED  IN  THE 
CHARGE  AND  SPECIFICATIONS,  FOR  WHICH  DAVIS  AND  HIS 
CANADA  CABINET  WERE  RESPONSIBLE. 

IT  will  have  been  noticed  that  in  its  charge  and  specifications 
against  the  prisoners  on  trial  the  government  charged  Jefferson 
Davis,  George  N.  Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thompson, 
William  C.  Cleary,  Clement  C.  Clay,  George  Harper,  George 
Young,  and  others  unknown,  with  combining,  confederating,  and 
conspiring  together  with  one  John  H.  Surratt  and  John  Wilkes 
Booth  to  kill  and  murder  Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson, 
William  H.  Seward,  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant;  and  in  the  specifica 
tions  it  is  alleged  that  David  E.  Herold,  Edward  Spangler,  Lewis 
Payne,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt, 
George  Atzerodt,  and  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  together  with  the  said 
John  H.  Surratt  and  John  Wilkes  Booth,  incited  and  encouraged 
thereunto  by  Jefferson  Davis,  George  N.  Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker, 
Jacob  Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary,  Clement  C.  Clay,  George 
Harper,  George  Young,  and  others  unknown,  did  kill  and  murder 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  assault  violently  with  intent  to  kill  William 
H.  Seward.  In  this  the  government  distinctly  and  unequivocally 
charged  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  allies  with  inciting  and  encourag 
ing  the  prisoners  on  trial  to  the  commission  of  this  great  crime, 
with  the  political  intent  of  giving  aid  to  their  sinking  cause.  They 
were  not  arraigned  before  the  Commission,  for  they  were  not  in 
custody ;  but  they  were  arraigned  before  the  world.  The  Com 
mission  was  then  not  called  upon  to  render  a  finding  in  their  case ; 
but  the  government  was  called  upon  to  present  to  the  world  through 
the  Commission  the  evidence  on  which  its  grave  charge  against 
118 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  119 

these  men,  who  had  rendered  themselves  conspicuous  before  the 
world,  was  founded.  Its  honor  and  dignity  made  this  obligatory 
upon  it.  A  careful  reading  of  the  charge  and  specifications  on 
which  the  assassins  were  arraigned  and  tried  will  show  that  it  was 
competent  for  the  government  to  present,  on  that  trial,  the  evi 
dence  in  its  possession  on  which  it  charged  Jefferson  Davis,  Jacob 
Thompson,  Clement  C.  Clay,  Beverly  Tucker,  George  N.  Sanders, 
William  C.  Cleary,  George  Young,  George  Harper,  and  others,  as 
being  inciters  to  this  crime.  This  evidence  was  so  conclusive  of 
their  guilt  as  charged,  that  had  they  been  before  the  Commission 
they  could  only  have  escaped  conviction  by  impeaching  the  govern 
ment's  witnesses. 

Before  entering  upon  the  consideration  of  the  evidence  a  few 
prefatory  remarks  seem  to  be  necessary.  At  an  early  period  of 
the  rebellion  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  cabinet  felt  the  necessity  of 
sending  some  of  the  strongest  men  of  the  Confederacy  to  establish 
their  headquarters  in  Canada,  to  look  after  the  interests  of  the 
rebel  cause,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  and  to  render  assistance  to 
that  cause  in  everyway  that  they  could.  Amongst  its  agents  thus 
sent  to  Canada  we  find  Jacob  Thompson  of  Mississippi,  who  had 
been  Secretary  of  the  Interior  during  Buchanan's  administration ; 
Clement  C.  Clay,  who  had  been  a  United  States  Senator  from  Ala 
bama ;  Beverly  Tucker,  who  had  been  a  circuit  judge  in  Virginia; 
George  N.  Sanders,  William  C.  Cleary,  George  Young,  George 
Harper,  and  others  of  less  note,  acting  in  subordinate  capacities 
under  the  above  conspicuous  leaders  and  agents. 

These  agents  had  been  domiciled  within  the  territory  of  a 
neutral  government  to  carry  on  belligerent  operations,  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  nations  and  also  of  war ;  and  the  operations  planned 
by  them  from  time  to  time,  and  sometimes  executed,  were  of  the 
highest  moral  turpitude.  The  fact  that,  although  the  government 
of  Canada  held  the  position  of  a  neutral  power  as  between  the 
belligerents,  yet  its  people,  in  the  proportion  of  five  to  one, 
sympathized  with  the  rebellion,  made  it  very  favorable  to  the 
execution  of  the  schemes  of  these  Southern  emissaries.  They 
also  occupied  a  position  that  geographically  was  most  favorable  to 
their  purposes.  They  were  \vithin  easy  and  constant  communica- 


120  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

tion  with  the  enemies  of  the  government  that  were  to  be  found  in 
every  Northern  State,  and  at  the  same  time  were  able  to  afford  a 
place  of  refuge  for  rebel  prisoners  who  were  able  to  find  means  of 
escape  from  Northern  prisons.  Canada  was  a  place  where  dis 
loyal  refugees  and  persons  accused  of  offenses  against  the  govern 
ment  congregated  all  through  the  war ;  and  so  Jefferson  Davis's 
Canada  Cabinet  was  never  at  a  loss  for  material  for  carrying  out 
its  plans  without  regard  to  their  character.  They  were  constantly 
surrounded  by  desperate  and  reckless  men,  who  were  in  deep 
sympathy  with  them  in  their  desperate  purpose  to  overthrow  the 
government,  and  like  them,  ready  to  engage  in  anything  that 
might  give  aid  in  carrying  out  that  purpose.  From  the  head  of 
the  rebel  government  on  down  through  the  ranks  of  this  class  of 
its  agents,  there  appears  to  have  been  no  restraint  from  any  moral 
consideration.  The  honorable  men  of  the  Confederacy  were  found, 
to  a  large  extent,  in  the  ranks  of  its  soldiers  engaged  in  open  war 
fare,  he  assassination  plot  was  the  last  card  of  these  desperate 
men ;  it  was  preceded  by  many  others  in  which  the  laws  of  war 
and  the  laws  of  morals  were  utterly  ignored.  We  will,  therefore, 
in  the  first  place,  present  some  of  the  most  flagrant  of  these,  in 
regard  to  which  the  evidence  makes  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
Canada  Cabinet  responsible,  in  order  that  from  these  revelations 
we  may  be  thoroughly  informed  of  their  utter  disregard  of  every 
moral  consideration,  and  that  we  may  thus  be  prepared  for  the 
conclusions  to  which  the  evidence  of  their  complicity  in,  and 
responsibility  for,  the  assassination  plot  point. 

To  show  the  utter  lack  of  moral  appreciation,  the  entire  disre 
gard  of  all  moral  requirements,  and  contempt  for  the  enlightened 
Christian  sentiment  of  the  world  as  embodied  in  the  accepted 
codes  of  martial  and  international  law,  and  that  the  assassination 
plot  was  only  in  keeping  with  their  other  schemes  to  aid  the  rebel 
cause,  I  deem  it  necessary  to  dwell  at  some  length  on  the  state 
ment  of  these  schemes,  as  shown  by  the  testimony  before  the 
Commission.  The  St.  Albans  raid,  under  the  lead  of  Lieutenant 
Bennett  H.  Young  (made  a  lieutenant  for  this  occasion  only,  and 
that  by  the  filling  up  for  him  of  a  Commission  that  was  sent  to 
Clay,  in  blank,  by  the  rebel  secretary  of  war,  and  to  be  thus  con- 


ATROCITIES  NOT   EMBRACED    LV    THE    CHARGE.  12 1 

ferred  by  him,  at  his  discretion,  on  the  persons  he  engaged  in  such 
expeditions,  as  a  protection  in  case  of  a  trial  for  extradition),  was 
simply  a  hostile  expedition  planned  by  these  conspirators,  who 
organized  a  squad  of  about  twenty  escaped  Confederate  soldiers 
from  the  prisons  in  which  they  had  been  confined,  and  placed  them 
under  command  of  Young,  armed  with  one  of  these  commissions 
for  his  protection.  This  bogus  lieutenant  was  instructed  to  pass 
through  the  New  England  States  with  his  command,  and  escape 
by  the  way  of  Halifax,  burning  towns  and  farm-houses  as  he  went ; 
and  by  robbing  and  plundering  to  secure  all  the  money  he  could, 
and  whatever  else  he  could  convert  to  the  use  of  the  Confederate 
government.  He  made  a  foray  into  Vermont ;  set  fire  to  the 
town  of  St.  Albans ;  robbed  two  banks,  securing  about  two  hun 
dred  thousand  dollars ;  and  then,  finding  himself  confronted  by 
such  opposition  that  he  was  unable  to  proceed,  was  compelled  to 
retreat  into  Canada,  being  so  closely  pursued  that  he  and  a  good 
part  of  his  command  were  made  prisoners.  They  were  com 
mitted  to  jail  to  await  a  trial  for  extradition. 

This  was  simply  a  guerilla  raid,  organized  on  neutral  territory, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  in  open  and  honorable  warfare 
against  an  armed  foe,  but  to  burn  and  plunder  the  property  of 
unarmed  people,  who  were  non-combatants  engaged  in  the  pur 
suits  of  peaceful  life.  Young's  commission?  however,  enabled  him 
to  defeat  the  demand  for  his  extradition,  as  he  was  not  captured 
until  he  had  regained  that  neutral  territory  on  which,  in  violation 
of  the  law  of  nations,  his  expedition  had  been  organized.  It  is 
easy  to  see  from  this  where  the  sympathies  of  the  Canadian  court 
that  tried  this  case  lay.  Pending  this  trial  for  extradition,  Clay 
became  very  uneasy  for  fear  the  commission  conferred  by  him  on 
Young  might  not  prove  a  sufficient  protection,  and  so  he  sent 
Richard  Montgomery,  who  was  in  the  employ  of  the  United 
States  in  its  department  of  secret  service,  and  who  had  so  well 
wormed  himself  into  the  confidence  of  the  Canada  Cabinet  as  to 
be  employed  by  them  on  this  mission,  with  a  letter  to  James  A. 
Seddon,  the  rebel  secretary  of  war,  urging  him  by  every  consider 
ation  he  could  think  of  to  give  a  direct  sanction  to  Young's  act, 
and  to  demand  in  the  name  of  the  Confederate  government  that 
he  should  be  released. 


122  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

This  letter  was  carried  to  Richmond  by  Montgomery,  after  hav 
ing  been  exhibited  to  the  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States. 
I  refer  to  this  as  showing  the  status  of  Montgomery  with  these  agents 
of  the  Confederate  government  in  Canada,  and  as  evidence  of  his 
having  gained  their  entire  confidence  ;  and  so  he  was  in  a  position  to 
be  a  witness,  before  the  Commission,  as  being  informed  of  their  plans 
and  of  their  doings.  In  response  to  this  argument  and  earnest 
appeal  of  Clay,  the  rebel  government  shouldered  the  responsibility 
of  the  St.  Albans  raid,  and  shielded  the  raiders  against  extradition. 
The  following  is  a  copy  of  Lieutenaut  Young's  instructions  from 

the  rebel  government :  — 

CONFEDERATE  STATES  OF  AMERICA, 

WAR  DEPARTMENT, 
RICHMOND,  VA.,  June  i6th,  1864. 
To  Lieutenant  BENNETT  H.  YOUNG:  — 

LIEUTENANT  :  —  You  have  been  temporarily  appointed  first  lieutenant  in  the  provi 
sional  army  for  special  service.  You  will  proceed  without  delay  to  the  British  Prov 
inces,  where  you  will  report  to  Messrs.  Thompson  and  Clay  for  instructions. 

You  will,  under  their  direction,  collect  together  such  Confederate  soldiers  who  have 
escaped  from  the  enemy,  not  exceeding  twenty  in  number,  as  you  may  deem  suitable 
for  the  purpose,  and  will  execute  such  enterprises  as  may  be  entrusted  to  you. 

You  will  take  care  to  commit  no  violation  of  the  local  law,  and  to  obey  implicitly 
their  instructions. 

You  and  your  men  will  receive  from  these  gentlemen  transportation  and  the  custom 
ary  rations  and  clothing,  or  commutation  therefor. 

JAMES  A.  SEDDON, 

VA.  June  i6th.  Secretary  of  War. 

Here  we  have  the  response  to  Clay's  letter,  and  everything  fixed 
up  for  the  defense  of  Young  and  his  men  after  the  act  had  been 
committed,  the  papers  being  antedated  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  the  case. 

During  the  progress  of  this  trial  for  the  extradition  of  the 
raiders,  Thompson,  Clay,  Tucker,  and  Sanders  necessarily  held 
a  kind  of  professional  intercourse  with  the  counsel  representing 
the  United  States.  Sanders,  on  one  occasion,  became  full  of 
self-importance,  as  also,  probably,  of  whiskey,  when  his  discretion 
forsook  him,  and  he  gave  vent  to  the  vaunting  and  boasting  of  a 
braggadocio.  He  said  this  raid  was  not  the  last  that  would  occur, 
but  it  would  be  followed  by  the  depleting  of  many  other  banks 
and  the  burning  of  other  towns  on  the  frontier,  and  that  many 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  123 

Yankee  sons  of (using  a  coarse  and  vulgar  expression)  would 

be  killed.  He  said  they  had  their  plans  perfectly  organized,  and 
men  ready  to  sack  and  burn  Buffalo,  Detroit,  New  York,  and  other 
places,  and  had  deferred  them  for  a  time,  but  would  soon  see  the 
plans  wholly  executed  ;  and  any  preparations  that  could  be  made 
by  the  government  to  prevent  them,  would  not,  though  they  might 
delay  them  for  a  time.  He  claimed  to  be  acting  as  the  agent  of 
the  Confederate  government,  and  we  have  seen  that  it  assumed 
the  responsibility.  Several  other  raids  of  like  character  were 
planned,  but  were  prevented  by  preparations  which  the  govern 
ment  was  enabled  to  make  by  being  informed  of  them  in  advance 
by  persons  engaged  in  its  secret  service,  or  by  other  friends  in 
Canada,  who,  being  in  the  confidence  of  the  conspirators,  became 
informed  as  to  their  plans. 

These  plans  involved  a  warfare  ^against  non-combatants ;  a  war, 
as  we  shall  see,  of  poisoning  reservoirs,  of  burning  towns  and  cities 
by  wholesale ;  a  war  of  the  destruction  of  men,  women,  and  chil 
dren  ;  burning  of  hospitals,  churches,  and  private  dwellings ;  a  war 
for  the  destruction  of  life  and  property ;  in  short,  a  war  against 
humanity.  The  City  of  New  York  came  in  for  a  large  share  of 
their  consideration.  The  destruction  of  the  Croton  dam  was  an 
enterprise  that  seemed  very  desirable  to  them,  and  for  which  they 
planned  ;  and  had  the  rebel  armies  been  able  to  keep  the  field  a 
little  while  longer,  this  would  no  doubt  have  been  attempted  and 
perhaps  accomplished.  The  poisoning  of  the  reservoirs  supply 
ing  the  city  with  water  seemed  very  desirable  to  them,  and  was 
much  discussed.  This  was  one  of  the  hobbies  of  the  infamous 
Dr.  Blackburn  and  a  Mr.  M.  A.  Fallen  of  Mississippi,  who  had 
been  a  surgeon  in  the  rebel  army.  They  had  made  a  calculation 
of  the  capacity  of  the  reservoirs  supplying  the  city,  and  had  calcu 
lated  the  amount  of  poison  required  to  make  an  ordinary  draught 
of  water  fatal  to  life.  Amongst  the  poisons  they  had  considered 
arsenic,  strychnine,  and  prussic  acid  as  available.  Blackburn 
thought  the  project  feasible.  Thompson  feared  it  would  be 
impossible  to  collect  so  large  a  quantity  of  poisonous  matter 
without  exciting  suspicion  and  leading  to  the  detection  of  the 
parties  engaged  in  it.  Fallen  and  others  thought  it  could  be 


124  ASSASSINATION    OF  LINCOLN. 

managed  in  Europe.  This  matter  was  fully  and  freely  discussed  in 
June,  1864,  by  Blackburn,  Fallen,  Thompson,  Sanders,  and  Cleary. 

The  moral  question  involved  in  the  destruction,  by  poison,  of 
the  entire  population  of  the  American  commercial  metropolis,  — 
men,  women,  and  children,  —  did  not  enter  into  their  thoughts;  it 
was,  in  fact,  a  scheme  dear  to  their  hearts ;  the  difficulties  attend 
ing  its  accomplishment  were  the  only  things  that  gave  them  any 
trouble. 

This  is  that  same  Dr.  Blackburn  who,  with  the  approbation  of 
Thompson  and  his  gang,  made  an  effort  in  the  summer  of  1864 
to  spread  pestilence  in  Washington  City,  and  in  other  cities  occu 
pied  by  federal  troops,  as  far  south  as  could  be  reached,  by 
means  of  clothing  infected  with  yellow  fever  and  with  small-pox. 

Conover  testified  to  this  positively  and  circumstantially  as  one 
of  their  many  wicked  schemes  to  spread  consternation  over  the 
North,  and  so  demoralize  the  people  that  they  would  be  willing 
to  make  peace  on  any  terms. 

As  this  last  scheme  is  so  monstrous  in  character  that  it  can 
only  be  believed  on  the  fullest  proof,  I  give  the  testimony  of 
Godfrey  Joseph  Hyams  before  the  Commission,  in  full. 

"  I  am  a  native  of  London,  Eng.,  but  have  lived  south  nine  or 
ten  years.  During  the  past  year  I  have  resided  in  Toronto,  Can. 
About  the  middle  of  December,  1863,  I  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Dr.  Blackburn.  I  was  introduced  to  him  by  the  Rev.  Stewart 
Robinson  at  the  Queen's  Hotel  in  Toronto.  I  knew  him  by  sight 
previously,  but  before  that  had  no  conversation  with  him.  I 
knew  that  he  was  a  Confederate  and  was  working  for  the  rebellion. 
Dr.  Blackburn  was  then  about  to  take  south  some  men  who  had 
•escaped  from  the  federal  service,  and  I  asked  to  go  with  him. 
He  asked  me  if  I  wanted  to  go  south  and  serve  the  Confederacy. 
I  said  I  did.  He  then  told  me  to  come  upstairs  to  a  private 
room,  as  he  wanted  to  speak  to  me.  He  took  me  upstairs,  and 
after  we  had  entered  his  room  he  pledged  his  word  as  a  free 
mason,  'and  offered  his  hand  in  friendship,  that  he  would  never 
deceive  me.  He  said  he  wanted  to  confide  to  me  an  expedition. 
T  told  him  I  would  not  care  if  I  did.  He  said  I  would  make  an 
independent  fortune  by  it,  at  least  one  hundred  thousand  dollars. 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  125 

and  get  more  honor  and  glory  to  my  name  than  General  Lee,  and 
be  of  more  assistance  to  the  Confederate  government  than  if  I  was 
to  take  one  hundred  thousand  soldiers  to  reinforce  General  Lee. 
I  pledged  my  word  that  I  would  go  if  I  could  do  any  good.  He 
then  told  me  he  wanted  me  to  take  a  certain  quantity  of  clothing, 
consisting  of  shirts,  coats,  and  underclothing,  into  the  States,  and 
dispose  of  them  by  auction.  I  was  to  take  them  to  Washington 
City,  to  Norfolk,  and  as  far  south  as  I  could  possibly  go,  where 
the  federal  government  held  possession  and  had  the  most  troops, 
and  to  sell  them  on  a  hot  day  or  of  a  night;  that  it  did  not 
matter  what  money  I  got  for  the  clothing,  I  had  just  to  dispose  of 
them  in  the  best  market  where  there  were  the  most  troops,  and 
where  they  would  be  most  effective,  and  then  come  away.  He 
told  me  I  should  have  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  my  ser 
vices,  sixty  thousand  dollars  of  it  directly  after  I  returned  to 
Toronto  ;  but  he  said  that  would  not  be  a  circumstance  to  what  I 
should  get.  He  said  I  might  make  ten  times  one  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars.  I  was  to  stay  in  Toronto,  and  go  on  with  my 
legitimate  business  until  I  heard  from  him.  He  told  me  to  keep 
quiet,  and  if  I  moved  anywhere  I  was  to  inform  Dr.  Stewart 
Robinson  where  I  went  to,  and  he  would  telegraph  for  me,  or 
write  to  me  through  him.  Sometime  in  the  month  of  May,  1864,. 
I  went  to  my  work  and  worked  on  until  the  8th  day  of  June,  '64 ; 
it  was  on  a  Saturday  night ;  I  had  been  out  to  take  a  pair  of  boots 
home  to  a  customer  of  mine ;  when  I  returned  home  my  wife  had 
a  letter  for  me  from  Dr.  Blackburn,  which  Dr.  Stewart  Robinson 
had  left  in  passing  there.  I  read  the  letter,  and  went  out  to  see 
Dr.  Robinson.  I  asked  him  what  I  was  to  do  about  it.  He  said 
he  did  not  know  anything  about  it;  that  he  did  not  want  to 
furnish  any  means  to  commit  an  overt  act  against  the  United 
States  government.  He  advised  me  to  borrow  from  Mr.  Preston, 
who  keeps  a  tobacco  manufactory  in  Toronto,  enough  money  to 
take  me  to  Montreal,  and  there  get  money  from  Mr.  Slaughter, 
according  to  the  directions  contained  in  Dr.  Blackburn's  letter. 
This  letter  instructed  me  to  proceed  from  Montreal  to  Halifax  to 
meet  Dr.  Blackburn;  it  was  dated 'Havana,  May  loth,  1864.  I 
went  to  Halifax  to  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Alexander  H. 


126  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Keith,  Jr.,  and  remained  under  his  care  until  Dr.  Blackburn 
arrived  in  the  steamer  'Alpha,'  on  the  I2th  of  July,  1864. 
When  Dr.  Blackburn  arrived  he  sent  to  the  Farmer's  Hotel,  where 
I  was  staying,  for  me.  I  went  to  see  him,  and  he  told  me  that 
the  goods  were  on  board  the  steamer  'Alpha,'  and  that  the 
second  officer  on  the  steamer  would  go  with  me  and  get  the  goods 
off,  as  they  had  been  smuggled  in  from  Bermuda.  Mr.  Hill,  the 
second  officer,  told  me  to  get  an  express  wagon  and  take  it  down 
to  Cunard's  steamboat  wharf.  I  did  so,  and  there  got  eight 
trunks  and  a  valise.  I  was  directed  to  take  them  to  my  hotel, 
and  put  them  in  a  private  room.  I  put  them  in  Mr.  Doran's 
private  sitting-room.  I  then  went  around  to  Dr.  Blackburn,  and 
told  him  I  had  got  the  goods  off  the  steamer.  He  told  me  that 
the  five  trunks  tied  up  with  ropes  were  the  ones  for  me  to  take, 
and  asked  me  if  I  would  take  the  valise  into  the  States  and  send  it 
by  express,  with  an  accompanying  letter,  as  a  donation  to  Presi 
dent  Lincoln.  I  objected  to  taking  it,  and  refused  to  do  so.  I 
then  took  three  of  the  trunks  and  the  valise  around  to  the  hotel. 
He  was  then  staying  at  the  Halifax  Hotel.  The  trunks  had 
Spanish  marks  upon  them,  and  he  told  me  to  scrape  them  off,  and 
that  Mr.  Hill  would  go  with  me  the  next  morning  and  make 
arrangements  with  some  captain  of  a  vessel  to  take  them.  There 
were  two  vessels  there  running  to  Boston,  and  I  was  to  make  an 
arrangement  with  either  of  them  to  smuggle  the  trunks  through 
to  Boston.  The  next  morning  I  went  down  with  Mr.  Hill  to  the 
vessels.  Mr.  Hill  had  a  private  conversation  with  Captain 
McGregor,  the  captain  of  the  first  vessel,  to  whom  we  applied  to 
take  the  goods,  and  he  refused. 

"  We  then  went  to  see  Captain  O'Brien  of  the  bark  '  Halifax.' 
Hill  told  him  that  I  had  some  presents  in  my  trunks,  consisting 
of  silks,  satin  dresses,  etc.,  that  I  wanted  to  take  to  my  friends.  The 
Captain  and  Mr.  Hill  had  a  private  conversation,  and  when  the 
Captain  came  out  he  consented  to  take  them.  I  was  to  give  him 
a  twenty-dollar  gold  piece  for  smuggling  them  in.  I  put  them  on 
board  the  vessel  that  day  and  he  stowed  them  away.  The  vessel 
lay  five  days  at  Boston  before  he  could  get  a  chance  to  get  them 
off,  but  finally  he  succeeded  in  getting  them  off,  and  expressed 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   7Ar    THE    CHARGE  127 

them  to  Philadelphia,  where  I  received  them  and  brought  them  to 
Baltimore.  I  then  took  out  the  goods,  which  were  very  much 
rumpled,  and  smoothed  them  out  and  arranged  them,  bought  some 
new  trunks,  and  repacked  them  and  brought  them  to  this  city. 
Dr.  Blackburn,  by  way  of  caution,  asked  me  before  leaving  if  I 
had  had  the  yellow  fever,  and  on  my  saying  (  no,'  he  said,  '  You  must 
have  a  preventive  against  taking  it.  You  must  get  some  camphor 
and  chew  it,  and  get  some  strong  cigars,  the  strongest  you  can 
get;  and  be  sure  to  keep  gloves  on  your  hands  when  handling 
the  things.'  He  gave  me  some  cigars  that  he  said  he  had  brought 
irom  Havana,  which  he  said  were  strong  enough  for  anything. 
When  I  arrived  in  this  city,  I  turned  over  five  of  the  trunks  to 
Messrs.  W.  L.  Wall  &  Company,  commission  merchants  in  this 
city,  and  four  to  a  man  by  the  name  of  Myers,  from  Boston,  a 
sutler  for  Siegel's  or  Weitzel's  division.  He  said  he  had  some 
goods  which  he  was  going  to  take  to  New  Berne,  N.C.,  and 
I  told  him  that  I  had  a  lot  of  goods  that  I  wanted  to  sell,  and, 
to  make  the  best  market  I  could  for  them,  I  would  turn  them  over 
to  him  on  commission.  I  also  told  him  I  would  shortly  have 
more,  and  mentioned  that  I  had  disposed  of  some  to  Wall  & 
Company,  of  this  city.  Dr.  Blackburn  told  me,  when  I  was  mak 
ing  arrangements,  that  I  should  let  the  parties  to  whom  I  dis 
posed  of  my  goods  know  that  I  would  have  a  big  lot  to  sell,  as 
it  was  in  contemplation  to  get  together  about  a  million  dollars' 
worth  of  goods  and  dispose  of  them  in  that  way.  Dr.  Blackburn 
stated  that  his  object  in  having  these  goods  disposed  of  in  different 
cities  was  to  destroy  the  armies,  or  anybody  that  they  came  in 
contact  with.  All  these  goods,  he  told  me,  had  been  carefully 
infected  in  Bermuda  with  yellow  fever,  small-pox,  and  other  con 
tagious  diseases. 

"  The  goods  in  the  valise,  which  were  intended  for  President 
Lincoln,  I  understood  him  to  say  had  been  infected  with  yellow 
fever  and  small-pox.  This  valise  I  declined  taking  charge  of  and 
turned  it  over  to  him  at  Halifax  Hotel,  and  I  afterwards  heard 
that  it  had  been  sent  to  the  President.  On  the  five  trunks  that  I 
turned  over  to  Wall  &  Company  I  got  an  advance  of  one  hundred 
dollars.  Among  these  five  trunks  there  was  one  that  was  always 


128  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

spoken  of  by  Blackburn  to  me  as  'Big  No.  2,'  which  he  said  I 
must  be  sure  to  have  sold  in  Washington.  On  disposing  of  the 
trunks  I  immediately  left  Washington,  and  went  straight  through 
until  I  got  to  Hamilton,  Canada.  In  the  waiting-room  there  I 
met  Mr.  Holcomb  and  Clement  C.  Clay.  They  both  rose,  shook 
hands  with  me,  and  congratulated  me  upon  my  safe  return,  and 
upon  my  making  a  fortune.  They  told  me  I  should  be  a  gentleman 
for  the  future,  instead  of  a  working  man  and  a  mechanic.  They 
seemed  perfectly  to  understand  the  business  in  which  I  had  been 
engaged. 

"  Mr.  Holcomb  told  me  that  Dr.  Blackburn  was  at  the  Donegan 
Hotel,  in  Montreal,  and  that  I  had  better  telegraph  to  him  stating 
that  I  had  returned.  As  Dr.  Blackburn  had  requested  me  to  tele 
graph  to  him  as  soon  as  I  got  into  Canada,  I  did  so,  and  the  next 
night,  between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock,  Dr.  Blackburn  came  up 
and  knocked  at  the  door  of  my  house.  I  was  in  bed  at  the  time. 
I  looked  out  of  the  window,  and  saw  Dr.  Blackburn  there.  Said 
he,  '  Come  down,  Hyams,  and  open  the  door ;  you  are  like  all 
damned  rascals  who  have  been  doing  something  wrong — you're 
afraid  that  the  devil  is  after  you.'  He  was  in  company  with  Ben 
nett  H.  Young.  I  came  down  and  let  him  in.  He  asked  me  how 
I  had  disposed  of  the  goods  and  I  told  him.  'Well,'  said  he  'that 
is  all  right  as  long  as  "Big  No.  2  "  went  into  Washington  ;  it  will 
kill  them  at  sixty  yards  distance.'  I  then  told  the  doctor  that 
everything  had  gone  wrong  at  my  home  in  my  absence ;  that  I 
needed  some  funds ;  that  my  family  needed  money.  He  said  he 
would  go  to  Colonel  Jacob  Thompson  and  make  arrangements  for 
me  to  draw  upon  him  for  any  amount  of  money  that  I  required. 
He  then  said  that  the  British  authorities  had  solicited  his  services  in 
attending  the  yellow  fever  that  was  then  raging  in  Bermuda ;  that 
he  was  going  on  there ;  and  that  as  soon  as  he  came  back  he 
would  see  me.  I  went  up  to  Jacob  Thompson  the  next  morning, 
and  told  him  what  Dr.  Blackburn  had  said.  He  said  '  Yes  ' ;  Dr.. 
Blackburn  had  been  there  and  had  made  arrangements  for  me  to 
draw  one  hundred  dollars  whenever  it  was  shown  that  I  had  made 
disposition  of  the  goods  according  to  his  directions.  I  told  him 
I  needed  money ;  that  I  had  been  so  long  away  from  home  that 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN   THE    CHARGE. 


129 


everything  I  had  was  gone,  and  I  wanted  money  to  pay  my  rent, 
etc.  He  said,  '  I  will  give  you  fifty  dollars  now,  but  it  is  against 
Dr.  Blackburn's  request ;  when  you  show  me  that  you  have  sold 
-  the  goods,  I  will  give  you  the  balance.'  He  asked  me  to  give  him 
a  receipt,  which  I  did  :  '  Received  of  Jacob  Thompson  the  sum 
of  fifty  dollars  on  account  of  Dr.  Blackburn.'  That  was  about  the 
nth  or  1 2th  of  August  last.  The  next  day  I  wrote  to  Messrs. 
Wall  &  Company,  of  Washington,  desiring  them  to  send  me  an 
account  of  the  sales,  and  the  balance  due  me.  When  I  received 
their  answer,  I  took  it  to  Colonel  Thompson.  He  then  said  he 
was  perfectly  satisfied  I  had  done  my  part,  and  gave  me  a  check 
for  fifty  dollars  on  the  Ontario  Bank.  I  gave  him  a  receipt: 
'  Received  of  Jacob  Thompson  one  hundred  dollars  in  full  on 
account  of  Dr.  Luke  P.  Blackburn.'  I  told  Thompson  of  the  large 
sum  which  Dr.  Blackburn  had  promised  me  for  my  services  and 
that  he  and  Mr.  Holcomb  had  both  told  me  that  the  Confederate 
government  had  appropriated  two  million  dollars  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  it  out;  but  he  would  not  pay  me  any  more.  When 
Dr.  Blackburn  returned  from  Bermuda,  I  wrote  to  him  at  Mont- 
treal,  and  told  him  I  wanted  some  money,  and  that  he  ought  to 
send  me  some ;  but  he  made  no  reply  to  my  letter.  I  was  then 
sent  down  to  Montreal  with  a  commission  for  Bennett  H.  Young, 
to  be  used  in  his  defense  it  the  St.  Albans  raid  case.  I  there 
met  Dr.  Blackburn.  He  said  I  had  written  some  hard  letters  to 
him,  abusing  him,  and  that  he  had  no  money  to  give  me.  He 
then  got  into  his  carriage  at  the  door  and  rode  off  to  some  races, 
I  think,  and  never  gave  me  any  more  satisfaction.  As  I  wanted 
money  before  leaving  for  the  States,  I  went  to  the  Clifton  House, 
Niagara.  Dr.  Blackburn  told  me  he  had  no  money  with  him  then, 
but  that  he  would  go  to  Mr.  Holcomb  and  get  some,  as  he  had  Con 
federate  funds  with  him.  Blackburn  said  that  when  I  returned  he 
would  get  the  money  for  the  expedition  from  either  Holcomb  or 
Thompson,  it  did  not  matter  which.  From  this,  and  from  Holcomb 
and  Clay  both  shaking  hands  with  me  and  congratulating  me  at 
Hamilton  upon  my  safe  return,  I  thought,  of  course,  they  knew  all 
about  it.  I  do  not  know  that  Dr.  Stewart  Robinson  knew  of  the 
business  in  which  I  was  engaged,  but  he  took  good  care  of  me  while 


130  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

I  was  at  Toronto,  in  the  fall,  and  until  Dr.  Blackburn  wrote  for  me 
in  the  spring;  and  when  he  gave  me  Dr.  Blackburn's  letter,  he  told 
me  to  borrow  the  money  from  Mr.  Preston  to  take  me  to  Mon 
treal,  as  he  said  he  did  not  want  to  commit  an  overt  act  against 

o 

the  Government  of  the  United  States  himself.  Mr.  Preston  lent 
me  ten  dollars  to  go  to  Montreal.  On  arriving  at  that  place, 
according  to  the  directions  of  Dr.  Blackburn's  letter,  I  went  to 
Mr.  Slaughter  to  get  the  means  to  take  me  to  Halifax.  Mr. 
Slaughter  was  short  of  funds,  and  had  only  twenty  dollars  that 
he  could  give  me.  He  said  that  I  had  better  go  to  Mr.  Holcomb, 
who  was  staying  at  the  Donegan  Hotel,  and  he  would  give  me  the 
balance.  I  went  to  the  Hotel  and  sent  up  my  name,  and  he  sent 
for  me  to  come  up.  I  told  him  I  wanted  some  money  to  take  me 
to  Halifax ;  he  asked  me  how  much  I  wanted  ;  I  told  him  as  much 
as  would  make  up  forty  dollars  ;  he  said  '  You  had  better  take  fifty 
dollars,'  but  as  I  did  not  want  that  much  I  only  took  enough  to 
make  forty  dollars.  When  I  came  to  Washington  to  dispose  of 
my  goods,  which  was  on  the  5th  of  August,  1864,  I  put  up  at 
the  National  Hotel,  registered  my  name  as  J.  W.  Harris,  under 
which  name  I  did  business  with  Wall  &  Company." 

Here  we  have  a  straightforward,  circumstantial  account  of  the 
efforts  made  and  the  means  used  to  spread  pestilence  and  death 
amongst  citizens  and  soldiers  alike,  in  the  capital  of  the  nation, 
and  in  other  cities  and  camps,  a  special  consignment,  supposed 
to  contain  the  contagion  of  yellow  fever  and  small-pox,  being  sent 
as  "  a  donation  to  President  Lincoln."  This  was  for  the  pur 
pose  of  taking  his  life,  and  at  the  risk  of  the  lives  of  his  house 
hold.  Blackburn,  Clay,  Thompson,  and  Plolcomb  were  the 
originators  of  the  plan,  and  as  guilty  as  the  infamous  scoundrel, 
Hyams,  who,  to  gratify  his  desire  for  revenge  on  them  for  their 
perfidy  in  putting  him  off  with  a  mere  pittance  of  the  promised 
reward  for  his  services  in  the  matter,  comes  before  the  Commis 
sion  and  reveals  the  whole  history  of  their  infamy.  No  one  who 
reads  his  story  will  doubt  that  he  was  a  conscienceless  scoundrel, 
who,  for  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  large  sum  of  money,  according 
to  their  promise,  was  willing  to  make  himself  an  instrument  in  the 
wholesale  and  indiscriminate  destruction  of  human  life.  But 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  131 

monster  as  he  was,  he  was  not  more  a  monster  than  was  each  one 
of  his  employers  He  was  evidently  a  man  well  qualified  for  the 
task  in  which  he  was  employed  ;  in  the  first  place  .destitute  of 
•conscience,  and  then  a  man  of  a  good  degree  of  intelligence, 
shrewdness,  and  knowledge  of  affairs.  Granting  that  he  was 
selected  by  Dr.  Robinson,  and  recommended  by  him  to  Dr. 
Blackburn,  he  could  not  have  made  a  better  selection  had  he 
had  full  knowledge  of  the  work  cut  out  for  him  to  do.  And  when 
we  consider  Blackburn's  perfidy  in  his  dealings  with  him,  pledging 
his  faith  as  a  freemason  and  giving  him  his  hand  in  friendship, 
assuring  him  that  he  would  never  deceive  him ;  then  building 
him  up  in  the  idea  that  he  would  receive  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  and  perhaps  ten  times  that  amount  as  his  reward ;  and 
then,  after  he  had  performed  a  service  that  put  his  own  life  in 
jeopardy,  to  put  him  off  with  a  mere  pittance  of  the  amount 
promised,  we  cannot  wonder  that  a  man  constituted  as  Hyams 
was  should  divulge  the  terrible  secret  in  revenge  for  the  shabby 
treatment  he  had  received  at  their  hands. 

See  how  Clay  and  Holcomb  meet  him  on  his  return  !  They 
understand  all  about  the  character  of  his  mission,  congratulate 
him  on  his  safe  return,  and  on  the  fact  that  from  thenceforth  he 
wras  not  to  be  known  as  a  laboring  man  and  a  mechanic,  but  as  a 
gentleman. 

No  wonder  that  he,  when  for  the  pitiful  sum  of  one  hundred 
dollars  he  had  signed  for  Thompson  a  receipt  in  full  on  account 
of  Dr.  Blackburn,  vowed  to  have  revenge.  How  true  it  is  that 
there  must  be  honor  even  amongst  the  worst  of  villains,  in  order 
that  they  may  hang  together.  They  broke  faith  with  Hyams,  and 
Hyams  revealed  circumstantially,  and  fully,  their  great  crime 
against  humanity.  W7e  have  now  seen  these  men  planning  to 
poison  the  water  supply  of  New  York  City  to  the  extent  of  fatal 
ity  to  its  whole  population,  men,  women,  and  children,  —  helpless 
age,  and  more  helpless  infancy  doomed  to  death  by  the  scope  of 
their  plan ;  and.  now,  we  have  found  them  engaged  in  an  effort  to 
spread  pestilence  with  the  same  purpose  of  the  indiscriminate 
destruction  of  human  life.  \Vhat  worse  can  they  do?  Can  we 
after  this  be  surprised  at  anything  they  may  undertake?  It  will 


132  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

not  avail  to  say  that  a  man  who  could  be  hired  to  do  such  a  thing 
as  this  is  unworthy  of  credence,  even  under  oath,  and  so  that  his 
testimony  is  not  to  be  received.  Hyams'  story  bears  on  its  face 
the  marks  of  a  truthful  narrative  of  the  facts,  just  as  they  occurred, 
and  it  does  not  follow  that  because  a  man  is  a  confessed  scoundrel 
he  is  incapable  of  telling  the  truth.  No  adequate  motive  for  false 
hood  in  this  case  can  be  assigned.  Had  his  employers  kept  faith 
with  him,  he  would  no  doubt  have  kept  their  terrible  secret,  and 
it  would  have  been  buried  with  him.  That  they  did  not,  only 
becomes  a  reason  for  his  disclosure  of  the  facts,  not  for  his  fabri 
cation  of  falsehoods.  But  then  his  statement  as  to  how  he  dis 
posed  of  the  goods  in  Washington  City  is  fully  confirmed  by  the 
testimony  of  Wall  &  Company,  who  produced  an  account  of 
the  transaction  agreeing  exactly,  in  date  and  amount,  with  that 
given  by  Hyams,  and  also  in  regard  to  his  alias  of  J.  W.  Harris. 
It  was  also  corroborated  by  the  National  Hotel  register  of  that 
date. 

Conover  testified  to  this  as  one  of  the  schemes  planned  by 
Thompson  and  his  gang,  and  Hyams  gives  a  full  account  of 
the  manner  of  its  execution.  For  some  reason  the  infection 
was  a  failure  in  Washington  City ;  but  not  so  with  the  goods  sent 
by  Myers,  the  sutler,  to  New  Berne,  N.C.  It  will  be  recol 
lected  that  an  epidemic  of  yellow  fever  broke  out  there  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  summer  of  1864,  that  swept  away  large  numbers 
of  people,  both  citizens  and  soldiers.  No  doubt  this  epidemic  was 
due  to  the  infection  carried  in  the  clothing  that  Myers  received 
from  Hyams,  to  be  sold  on  commission ;  and  that  in  the  great  day 
of  final  account  these  men  will  find  themselves  arraigned  as  the 
murderers  of  all  those  who  fell  as  the  victims  of  their  hellish  plot, 
before  a  tribunal  that  is  infinitely  perfect  in  its  knowledge  and 
just  in  its  decisions. 

Plot  to  Burn  Ne^v  York  City  and  its  Attempted  Execution. 

The  plot  to  burn  the  city  of  New  York  was  attempted  to  be 
carried  out  on  the  25th  of  November,  1864.  I  will  give  the  his 
tory  of  this  attempt  as  narrated  in  his  confession,  by  Robert  C. 
Kennedy,  one  of  the  gang  of  incendiaries  sent  there  for  that  pur- 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN   THE    CHARGE.  133 

pose,  who  was  arrested,  tried,  found  guilty,  condemned,  and  hanged 
for  his  crime.  Before  his  execution  he  made  a  full  confession  as 
follows  :- 

"  After  my  escape  from  Johnson's  Island  I  went  to  Canada,  where  I  met  a  number 
of  Confederates.  They  asked  me  if  I  was  willing  to  go  on  an  expedition.  I  replied: 
*  Yes,  if  it  is  in  the  service  of  my  country.'  They  said:  '  It  is  all  right,'  but  gave  me 
no  intimation  of  its  nature,  nor  did  I  ask  for  any.  I  was  then  sent  to  New  York,  where 
I  stayed  some  time.  There  were  eight  men  of  our  party,  of  whom  two  fled  to  Canada. 
After  we  had  been  in  New  York  three  weeks  we  were  told  that  the  object  of  our  expe 
dition  was  to  retaliate  on  the  North  for  the  atrocities  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  It 
•was  designed  to  set  fire  to  the  city  on  the  night  of  the  Presidential  election;  but  the 
phosphorus  was  not  ready,  and  it  was  put  off  until  the  25th  of  November.  I  was 
stopping  at  the  Belmont  House,  but  moved  into  Prince  Street.  I  set  fire  to  four 
•places  —  in  Barnum's  Museum,  Lovejoy's  Hotel,  Tammany  Hotel,  and  the  New  Eng 
land  House.  The  others  merely  started  fires  in  the  house  where  each  one  was  lodging, 
and  then  ran  off.  Had  they  all  done  as  I  did,  we  would  have  had  thirty-two  fires  and 
played  a  huge  joke  on  the  fire  department.  I  know  that  I  am  to  be  hung  for  setting 
fire  to  Barnum's  Museum,  but  that  was  only  a  joke.  I  had  no  idea  of 'doing  it.  I  had 
•been  drinking  and  went  in  there  with  a  friend,  and,  just  to  scare  the  people,  I  emptied 
.a  bottle  of  phosphorus  on  the  floor.  We  knew  it  would  not  set  fire  to  the  wood,  for 
we  had  tried  it  before,  and  at  one  time  had  concluded  to  give  the  thing  up.  There 
-was  no  fiendishness  about  it.  After  setting  fire  to  my  four  places,  I  walked  the  streets  all 
.night,  and  went  to  the  Exchange  Hotel  early  in  the  morning.  We  all  met  there  that 
morning  and  the  next  night.  My  friend  and  I  had  rooms  there,  but  we  sat  in  the 
office  nearly  all  the  time  reading  the  papers,  while  we  were  watched  by  the  detectives, 
of  whom  the  hotel  was  full.  I  expected  to  die  then,  and  if  I  had  it  would  have  been 
all  right;  but  now  it  seems  rather  hard.  I  escaped  to  Canada  and  was  glad  enough 
when  I  crossed  the  bridge  in  safety.  I  desired,  however,  to  return  to  my  command, 
and  started  with  my  friend  for  the  Confederacy  via  Detroit.  Just  before  entering  the 
•city  he  received  an  intimation  that  the  detectives  were  on  the  look-out  for  us,  and  giv 
ing  me  the  signal  he  jumped  from  the  cars.  I  did  not  notice  the  signal,  but  kept  on 
.and  was  arrested  in  the  depot.  I  wish  to  say  that  the  killing  of  women  and  children 
was  the  last  thing  thought  of.  We  wanted  to  let  the  people  of  the  North  understand 
that  there  were  two  sides  to  this  war,  and  that  they  could  not  be  rolling  in  wealth  and 
comfort  while  we  at  the  South  were  bearing  all  the  hardships  and  privations.  In  retal 
iation  for  Sheridan's  atrocities  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  we  desired  to  destroy  prop 
erty;  not  the  lives  of  women  and  children,  although  that  would,  of  course,  have 
followed  in  its  train." 

Done  in  the  presence  of  LIEUT.  COL.  MARTIN  BURKE  and 

J.  HOWARD,  JR. 
arch  24th,  1865,   10.30  P.M. 

Kennedy,  in  the  presence  of  death,  made  this  free  and  full  con 
fession,  carefully  confining  himself  to  the  narration  of  his  own  and 
the  acts  of  his  fellow  incendiaries.  He  does  not  tell  who  planned 
this  enterprise  of  death  and  destruction  for  the  great  metropolis  of 


134  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

the  country,  and  whilst  honestly  confessing  his  own  part  in  it,  is 
very  careful  not  to  compromise  anybody  else.  But  we  are  not  left 
without  information  as  to  who  were  the  employers  of  him  and  his 
gang ;  and  here  again  Thompson  and  his  fellow  agents  of  the  rebel 
government  in  Canada  are  made  to  appear  as  its  originators,  and 
must  be  held  responsible,  not  only  for  the  attempt  thus  made  ta 
destroy  New  York  by  fire,  but  also  for  the  worst  consequences  that 
could  have  happened  had  their  attempt  proven  successful.1  Ken 
nedy  says  they  did  not  desire  to  destroy  the  lives  of  women  and 
children,  although  that  would  of  course  have  followed  in  its  train. 
Thompson,  Clay,  Cleary,  Sanders,  and  any  others  that  had  any 
hand  in  setting  this  expedition  on  foot,  could  not  fail  to  know  what 
would  necessarily  follow  in  its  train  if  successful,  but  were  not  de 
terred  by  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  it  involved  not  merely  the 
destruction  of  property,  but  of  necessity  also  the  destruction  of 
women  and  children  ;  for  the  firing  of  a  city  like  New  York  in  many 
places,  simultaneously,  if  successful  in  its  object,  the  destruction  of 
the  city,  must  necessarily  result  in  the  same  kind  of  indiscriminate 
destruction  of  human  life  that  resulted  at  New  Berne,  from  the  dis 
semination  of  pestilence  sent  there  in  the  clothing  that  that  inhu 
man  fiend,  Dr.  Blackburn,  had  carefully  infected  and  sent  there  for 
that  very  purpose.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  world  war  meant  the 
indiscriminate  destruction  of  all  that  belonged  to  the  enemy.  The 
spirit  of  war  then  was  to  exterminate  the  foe.  Prisoners  of  war 
were  slaughtered  after  the  battle  was  ended.  Women  and  chil 
dren  were  killed  or  carried  into  slavery.  Men  had  not  learned  to- 
exercise  mercy  in  war.  It  meant  universal  destruction  of  life,  and 
confiscation  of  the  property  of  the  enemy.  It  meant  even  the  con 
fiscation  of  the  territory  or  country  in  which  he  lived.  Tt  is  so 
yet  among  the  savage  tribes  of  the  earth.  With  them  the  murder  of 
a  woman  about  to  become  a  mother  is  nothing,  and  the  dashing  out 
of  the  brains  of  her  children  against  a  stone  or  a  tree,  before  her 
eyes,  yields  to  them  a  fiendish  satisfaction.  Civilized  nations,  how 
ever,  do  not  so  carry  on  war,  and  the  laws  of  war  do  not  permit  this 
mode  of  warfare.  The  annals  of  no  age  of  the  world,  or  of  the 

1  Conspiracy  Trial,  pp.  29,  30,  testimony  of  Conover;    also  p.  36,  testimony  of  Dr.. 
Merritt;    also  p.  25,  testimony  of  Montgomery. 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  135 

most  rude  and  savage  people  of  the  earth,  afford  examples  more 
atrocious  than  those  planned  and  executed,  or  attempted  to  be 
executed,  by  these  agents  of  Jefferson  Davis  in  Canada,  and  by 
other  agents,  as  we  shall  see,  whose  deeds  were  sanctioned  and  paid 
for  by  Davis  and  his  Secretary  of  State  Benjamin. 

The  prison-pen  at  Andersonville  was  evidently  planned  for  the 
destruction  of  the  lives  of  the  prisoners  of  war  that  were  sent 
there ;  and  if  any  escaped  death,  it  was  intended  that  they  should 
be  so  physically  injured  that  they  could  never  again  render  any 
service  to  the  Union  cause.  In  a  country  abounding  in  forest 
shade  and  pure  water,  there  can  be  no  excuse  given  for  locating  a 
prison-pen  in  a  little  intervale,  wholly  destitue  of  shade,  where 
men  without  tents  or  shelter  of  any  kind  were  huddled  together 
by  the  thousands,  with  a  very  meagre  supply  of  water,  for  a  long 
time,  even  for  quenching  thirst,  and  none  at  all  for  the  purposes 
of  cleanliness,  and  what  they  had  for  the  former  purpose  being  con 
taminated  with  all  the  filth  from  the  drainage  of  the  town  just  above. 

It  is  evident  that  this  location  was  made  with  a  view  to  the  destruc 
tion  of  life  and  the  ruin  of  health.  Then,  for  the  further  carrying 
out  of  this  purpose,  the  rations  supplied  were  not  only  wholly 
insufficient  in  quantity,  but  most  unwholesome  in  quality,  exactly 
adapted  to  aid  the  effects  of  miasmatic  exposure,  and  foul  water, 
in  bringing  on  stomach  and  bowel  troubles  and  low  forms  of  fever, 
which  were  kept  up  until  life  was  literally  drained  out,  and  death 
from  exhaustion  ensued.  Here,  without  any  sympathetic  medical 
assistance  or  proper  medicine,  men  were  dying  daily  by  the  fifties 
and  the  hundreds,  and  the  survivors  becoming  mere  ghostly 
spectres ;  whilst  the  inhuman  monster,  Wirtz,  stood  gloating  over 
the  scene  in  devilish  glee,  and  his  inhuman  guards  were  con 
stantly  on  the  lookout  for  pretexts  to  shoot  down  their  fello\vmen, 
as  though  the  terrible  harvest  of  death,  secured  by  their  arrange 
ments  and  management  of  this  graveyard  of  the  living,  was  too 
meagre,  and  required  their  bullets  to  enrich  it.  Such  was  Ander 
sonville.  The  purpose  of  its  location  and  management  are  too 
obvious  to  need  remark ;  and  for  all  this,  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
Secretary  of  War  are  to  be  held  responsible.  Far  be  it  from  me 
to  bring  up  this  matter  for  the  purpose  of  giving  a  fresh  impulse 


136  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

to  sectional  enmity.  I  only  do  it  to  show  the  low  moral  status  of 
those  who  were  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  war  on  the  side 
of  the  rebellion,  in  order  that  from  all  this  we  may  be  prepared 
for  the  evidence  presented  to  the  world  through  the  Commission, 
sustaining  the  grave  charges  of  the  government. 

There  was  no  doubt  an  element,  perhaps  a  large  element  of  the 
population  of  the  Southern  States,  that  was  in  full  sympathy  with 
this  policy ;  but  such  a  policy  could  only  have  been  abhorrent  to 
the  honorable  foe  who  bravely  confronted  us  on  the  field  of  con 
flict.  It  was  the  stay-at-home-and-fight  element  that  sanctioned 
these  atrocities.  War  is  cruel  when  conducted  on  the  strictest 
rules  of  civilized  warfare.  War  is  destructive ;  it  is  harsh  and 
unrelenting.  Foeman  must  meet  foeman  with  his  steel.  It  is  a 
game  in  which  human  life  is  always  the  price  of  success  and  the 
cost  of  failure.  The  enemy  must  be  met  and  overcome ;  his 
resources  must  be  reached  and  cut  off  if  it  can  be  done,  thus 
starving  him  into  submission,  as  a  more  humane  way  of  getting  the 
victory  over  him  than  by  taking  his  life.  But  amongst  civilized 
people  no  enemy  is  to  be  deprived  of  life  but  the  armed  and 
active  foe  in  the  field,  in  honorable  and  open  combat,  except  for 
crime.  The  lives  of  women,  children,  prisoners  of  war,  and  of 
non-combatants  generally,  must  be  held  sacred.  Thus  we  see 
how  much  the  horrors  of  war  have  been  mitigated  by  the  more 
enlightened  sentiments  and  Christian  morality  of  the  world's  pres 
ent  state  of  civilization.  When  these  shall  have  done  their  perfect 
work,  wars  will  cease.  The  time  will  yet  come  when  men  shall 
learn  war  no  more.  May  God  hasten  the  day. 

In  charging  Jefferson  Davis,  and  those  associated  with  him  in 
the  conduct  of  the  war  with  an  utter  disregard  of  the  laws  of  war, 
and  of  being  guilty  of  atrocities  that  are  only  matched  in  savage 
life,  I  wish  again  to  make  a  distinct  disclaimer  in  behalf  of  those 
who  fought,  and  of  those  who  conducted  his  operations  in  the 
field.  Whilst  I  abhor  their  construction  of  the  Constitution  and 
theory  of  the  union  of  the  States  as  destructive  of  the  hopes  of 
liberty  and  of  free  government,  tending  continually  to  disintegra 
tion,  and  making  the  idea  of  a  nation  an  impossibility,  I  admire 
and  honor  the  courage  and  bravery  with  which  they  maintained 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED    LV   THE    CHARGE.  137 

their  theory,  and  accord  to  them  the  honor,  as  well  as  the  courage 
of  true  soldiers. 

To  them  the  idea  of  winning  success  by  the  means  we  have  had 
under  consideration,  and  for  which  we  have  found  the  political 
leaders  of  the  rebellion  responsible,  including  the  highest  officer  of 
the  Confederacy,  would  have  been  as  abhorrent  as  to  myself.  Not 
a  word  that  I  have  written  can  tarnish  the  fame  of  the  true  soldier ; 
and  I  have  carefully  avoided  charging  anything  against  even  the 
politicians  of  the  Confederacy  that  is  not  sustained  by  indisputa 
ble  evidence.  Considered  morally,  their  methods  can  never  be 
justified;  yet  it  was  by  these  methods,  with  assassination  added, 
that  the  political  leaders  of  the  rebellion  sought  to  obtain  success, 
and  because  of  this,  must  for  all  time  in  history  fall  under  the 
condemnation  of  the  enlightened  Christian  conscience  of  the 

o 

world.  That  they  were  guilty  of  all  these  things  has  been 
abundantly  proven ;  but  as  we  shall  see,  the  evidence  has  not  yet 
been  exhausted.  They  attempt  to  shield  themselves  under  the 
claim  of  justifiable  retaliation.  Retaliation  for  what?  They 
answer,  "  The  atrocities  committed  by  Sheridan  in  the  Shenan- 
•doah  Valley."  Let  us  consider  this  question  for  a  moment.  It 
was  the  fortune  of  the  writer  to  be  serving  under  Sheridan  at  the 
time  these  alleged  atrocities  were  committed,  and  to  be  an  eye 
witness  of  them.  What  did  Sheridan  do?  He  burnt  all  the  stack 
yards  and  barns  containing  grain  and  hay,  and  all  the  mills  and 
factories  found  in  the  valley  from  above  Harrisonburg  on  down  to 
near  Winchester,  or  perhaps  lower  down  than  that.  He  also 
appropriated  all  the  horses,  cattle,  sheep,  etc.,  that  could  have 
been  made  available  for  the  support  and  aid  of  an  enemy.  He 
dealt  merely  with  property,  and  that  such  property  alone  as  would 
have  enabled  General  Lee  again  to  have  threatened  the  national 
capital  by  an  invading  foe  by  this  route,  as  he  had  twice,  or 
oftener,  done  before,  thus  making  it  necessary  to  employ  a  large 
force  from  our  army  in  guarding  this  route.  General  Grant  deter 
mined  to  render  this  division  of  his  forces  unnecessary,  by  render 
ing  the  valley  impracticable  to  Lee  by  this  destruction  of  the 
abundant  supplies  that  it  furnished,  in  order  that  he  might  have 
the  benefit  of  Sheridan's  forces  in  his  investment  of  Richmond. 


138  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

It  was  simply  the  destruction  of  property  by  which  the  rebellion 
coulcl  sustain  itself,  and  thus  prolong  its  existence,  in  order  to 
shorten  the  war,  and  thus  save  the  expenditure  of  human  life. 
There  was  no  property  destroyed  or  confiscated  but  such  as  could 
be  used  for  the  subsistence  and  movements  of  an  army.  It  was 
simply  a  question  of  shortening  the  war,  and  thus  economizing 
human  life  by  the  destruction  of  property,  and  so  was  a  measure 
fully  justified  by  the  laws  and  usages  of  war.  Sheridan  acted 
under  Grant's  orders  in  this  matter,  and  his  acts  were  only  atrocious 
as  war  itself  is  atrocious,  and  can  never  serve  as  a  justification 
of  schemes  that  in  every  instance  involved  the  lives  of  non-com 
batants,  and  even  of  women  and  children.  All  of  this  destruc 
tion  of  property  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  by  Sheridan  was  done, 
and  accounted  for,  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  laws  and  usages 
of  war,  and  has  never  been  challenged  by  the  civilized  nations  of 
the  world  as  an  unwarranted  atrocity.  It  was  harsh  in  the  extreme  ; 
but  as  a  military  necessity  it  was  justifiable.  It  included  in  its 
object  mercy  towards  the  lives  of  men. 

As  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy  began  to  lose  ground  in  the 
summer  of  1864,  and  the  signal  success  of  our  arms  made  it  clear 
that  it  would  not  be  able  to  maintain  the  fight  to  a  successful 
close,  the  political  leaders  became  desperate  and  reckless  as  to  the 
means  to  which  they  resorted.  The  City  Point  explosion,  the  burn 
ing  of  a  number  of  steamboats  on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers,, 
and  the  burning  of  a  soldiers',  or  United  States,  hospital  at  Louis 
ville,  Ky.,  were  amongst  the  occurrences  of  that  eventful  summer. 
The  following  extract  from  the  report  of  John  Maxwell  to  Cap 
tain  Z.  McDaniel,  commanding  Torpedo  Company,  explains  the 
City  Point  explosion:  — 

"Captain:  I  have  the  honor  to  report  that  in  obedience  to 
your  order,  and  with  the  means  and  equipments  furnished  me  by 
you,  I  left  this  city  (Richmond)  26th  July  last  for  the  line  of  the 
James  River,  to  operate  with  the  '  hozological  torpedo '  against  the 
enemy's  vessels  navigating  that  river.  I  had  with  me  Mr.  R.  K. 
Dillard,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  localities,  and  whose 
services  I  engaged  for  the  expedition. 

"  On  arriving  in   Isle  of  Wight  County,  on  the   2d   of  August, 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN   THE    CHARGE.  139 

we  learned  of  immense  supplies  of  stores  being  landed  at  City 
Point ;  and  for  the  purpose,  by  stratagem,  of  introducing  our 
machine  upon  the  vessels  there  discharging  stores,  started  for 
that  point.  We  reached  there  before  day-break  on  the  gth  of 
August  last,  having  travelled  mostly  by  night,  and  crawled  upon 
our  knees  to  pass  the  east  picket  line.  Requesting  my  companion 
to  remain  behind  about  half  a  mile,  I  approached  cautiously  the 
wharf,  with  my  machine  and  powder  covered  by  a  small  box. 
Finding  the  captain  had  come  ashore  from  a  barge  then  at  the 
wharf,  I  seized  the  occasion  to  hurry  forward  with  my  box. 
Being  halted  by  one  of  the  wharf  sentinels,  I  succeeded  in  pass 
ing  him  by  representing  that  the  captain  had  ordered  me  to  con 
vey  the  box  on  board.  Hailing  a  man  from  the  barge,  I  put  the 
machine  in  motion,  and  gave  it  in  his  charge.  He  carried  it 
aboard.  The  machine  contained  about  twelve  pounds  of  powder. 
Rejoining  my  companion  we  retired  to  a  safe  distance  to  witness 
the  effect  of  our  effort. 

"  In  about  an  hour  the  explosion  took  place.  Its  effect  was  com 
municated  to  another  barge  beyond  the  one  operated  upon,  and 
also  to  a  large  wharf  building  containing  their  stores  (enemy's), 
which  was  totally  destroyed.  The  scene  was  terriffic,  and  the 
effect  deafened  my  companion  to  an  extent  from  which  he  has 
not  recovered.  My  own  person  was  severely  shocked,  but  I  am 
thankful  to  Providence  that  we  have  both  escaped  without  injury. 
We  obtained  and  enclose  slips  from  the  enemy's  newspapers,  which 
afford  their  testimony  of  the  terrible  effects  of  the  blow.  The 
enemy  estimate  the  loss  of  life  at  fifty-eight  killed  and  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty-six  wounded,  but  we  have  reason  to  believe  it 
greatly  exceeded  that. 

"  The  pecuniary  damage  we  heard  estimated  at  four  millions  of 
dollars ;  but  of  course  we  can  give  you  no  account  of  the  extent  of 
it  exactly.  I  may  be  permitted,  Captain,  here  to  remark  tJiat  a 
party  of  ladies,  it  seems,  were  killed  by  this  explosion.  It  is  sad 
dening  to  me  to  realize  the  fact  that  the  terrible  effects  of  war  [he 
should  have  added  as  thus  conducted]  induce  such  consequences ; 
but  when  I  remember  the  ordeal  to  which  our  own  women  have 
been  submitted,  and  the  barbarities  of  the  enemy's  crusade  against 


140  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

us  and  them,  my  feelings  are  relieved  by  the  reflection  that  whilst 
this  catastrophe  was  not  intended  by  us,  it  amounts  only,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  to  just  retribution" 

Hear  the  pious  scoundrel  salving  his  conscience  with  the  old 
cry  of  4<  just  retribution  !  " 

The  following  will  explain  the  agency  by  which  boats  on  the 
Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers,  and  the  United  States  Hospital  at 
Louisville,  Ky.,  were  burned.  It  is  the  testimony  of  Edward 
Frazier  before  the  Commission:  — 

"  I  am  a  steamboat  man,  and  have  been  making  St.  Louis  my 
home  for  the  last  nine  or  ten  years.  During  1864  I  knew  of 
the  operations  of  Tucker,  Minor  Majors,  Thomas  L.  Clark,  and 
Colonel  Barrett,  of  Missouri,  for  burning  boats  carrying  govern 
ment  freight,  transports,  and  other  vessels  on  the  Ohio  and  Miss 
issippi  and  other  rivers.  These  men  were  in  the  service  of  the 
Confederate  Government.  I  knew  of  the  following  steamboats 
having  been  burned  by  the  operations  of  these  parties :  the  '  Im 
perial,'  '  Hiawatha,'  the  '  Robert  Campbell,'  the  '  Louisville,'  the 
*  Daniel  G.  Taylor,'  and  others,  besides  some  in  New  Orleans 
that  I  do  not  know  the  names  of.  The  '  Imperial  '  was  one  of 
the  largest  and  finest  transports  on  the  western  waters.  In  the 
case  of  the  burning  of  the  '  Robert  Campbell/  which  was 
destroyed  in  the  stream  when  under  way,  at  Milikin's  Bend, 
twenty-five  miles  above  Vicksburg,  there  was  a  considerable  loss 
of  life.  The  agent  who  destroyed  this  boat  was  on  board.  These 
boats  were  all  owned  by  private  individuals.  The  operations  of 
these  men  were  to  include  government  hospitals,  store-houses, 
and  everything  appertaining  to  the  enemy.  A  United  States 
hospital  at  Louisville  was  burned  in  June  or  July  of  1864.  I  do 
not  know  who  burned  it,  but  a  man  named  Dillingham  claimed 
compensation  for  it.  I  was  in  Richmond  from  the  2Oth  to  the 
.25th  or  26th  of  August  last,  when  I  had  an  interview  with  the  rebel 
Secretary  of  War,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis. 
Thomas  L.  Clark,  Dillingham,  and  myself,  called  there  in  connec 
tion  with  the  boat  burning,  and  put  in  claims  to  Mr.  James  A. 
Seddon,  the  rebel  Secretary  of  War.  Mr.  Clark  introduced  me 
to  Mr.  Seddon.  He  told  me  that  he  had  thrown  up  that  business, 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN   THE    CHARGE.  141 

that  it  was  now  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Benjamin.  We  went  to  him,, 
and  Mr.  Benjamin  looked  at  the  papers  we  brought  him,  and 
asked  me  if  I  knew  anything  about  them.  I  told  him  that  I  did, 
and  that  I  believed  they  were  all  right.  He  asked  me  if  I  was 
from  St.  Louis.  I  told  him  I  was.  He  then  asked  Mr.  Clark  if 
he  knew  me  to  be  all  right,  and  he  said  I  had  been  represented 
to  him  by  Mr.  Majors  as  being  all  right.  Mr.  Benjamin  told  us 
all  three  to  call  the  next  day.  We  did  so,  when  he  said  he  had 
shown  these  papers  to  Jefferson  Davis,  and  he  (Benjamin)  wanted 
to  know  if  we  would  not  take  thirty  thousand  dollars  and  sign 
receipts  in  full.  We  told  him  we  would  not.  Mr.  Benjamin  then 
said  that  if  Dillingham  was  to  claim  this  in  Louisville,  he  wanted 
a  statement  of  it.  We  went  back  to  the  hotel,  and  I  wrote  the 
statement  myself.  It  read  that  Mr.  Dillingham  had  been  hired 
by  General  Polk,  and  that  he  had  been  sent  to  Louisville  expressly 
to  do  that  work ;  namely,  to  burn  the  hospital.  It  was  then 
talked  over  with  Mr.  Benjamin,  and  we  made  a  settlement  with 
him  for  fifty  thousand  dollars ;  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  down 
in  gold,  and  fifteen  thousand  dollars  on  deposits,  to  "be  paid  in 
four  months,  provided  the  claims  proved  correct.  The  money 
was  paid  by  a  draft  on  Columbia  for  thirty-four  thousand,  eight 
hundred  dollars,  in  gold,  and  two  hundred  dollars  in  gold  we  got 
in  Richmond.  We  received  the  gold  on  the  draft  at  Columbia. 
Whilst  in  Richmond,  Mr.  Benjamin  told  me  that  Mr.  Davis 
wanted  to  see  me.  I  went  in  with  Mr.  Benjamin  to  see  Mr.  Davis, 
and  we  sat  and  talked.  The  conversation  first  was  about  what 
was  called  the  Long  Bridge,  between  Nashville  and  Chattanooga. 
Mr.  Davis  wanted  to  know  what  I  thought  about  destroying  it. 
He  said  they  had  been  thinking  of  it,  and  of  sending  some  one  to 
have  it  done.  I  told  him  I  knew  of  the  bridge,  though  I  did  not, 
for  I  had  never  been  there,  but  did  not  know  what  to  think 
about  destroying  it.  He  said  I  had  better  study  it  over.  Finally 
I  told  him  I  thought  it  could  be  done.  Mr.  Benjamin,  I  believe 
it  was,  first  remarked  that  he  would  give  four  hundred  thousand 
dollars  if  that  bridge  was  destroyed,  and  asked  me  if  I  would 
take  charge  of  it.  I  told  him  I  would  not  unless  the  passes 
were  taken  away  from  those  men  that  were  now  down  there,  and 


142  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Davis  said  it  should  be  done.  The  conversation  then  turned 
on  the  burning  of  the  steamboats.  I  told  Mr.  Davis  that  I  did 
not  think  it  was  any  use  burning  steamboats,  and  he  said  no,  he 
was  going  to  have  that  stopped.  The  next  day  I  saw  an  order 
taking  away  passes  issued  on  or  before  the  23d  of  August.  These 
passes  were  permits  to  do  this  kind  of  work.  I  presume  Mr. 
Davis  knew  that  the  money  I  received  was  for  the  work  that  I  had 
done;  he  knew  that  I  had  received  money  there.  Mr.  Davis 
seemed  fully  aware  of  what  we  had  done,  and  he  did  not  condemn 
it.  Mr.  Majors  and  Barrett  belonged  to  an  organization  known  as 
the  '  O.  A.  K.',  or  'Order  of  American  Knights.'"  The  witness 
was  asked  to  state,  if  he  thought  proper  to  do  so,  whether  he  was 
also  a  member  of  that  order;  but  he  declined  to  say.  'I  under 
stood'  (said  the  witness)  'that  Colonel  Barrett  held  the  position 
of  adjutant  general  of  this  organization,  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  for 
the  State  of  Illinois.  I  do  not  know  that  Majors  and  Barrett  were 
in  Chicago  in  July  last,  but  Mr.  Majors  left  St.  Louis  either  in 
June  or  July,  to  go  to  Canada,  and  I  presume  went  there  by  way 
of  Chicago." 

Here  again,  we  see  the  moral  plane  on  which  Davis  and 
Benjamin  worked  for  the  success  of  the  Confederacy.  We  find 
them  employing  and  paying  agents  for  burning  boats,  midstream, 
regardless  of  the  destruction  of  the  lives  of  non-combatants,  in 
cluding,  most  likely,  women  and  children  amongst  the  passengers 
aboard ;  burning  a  hospital  filled  with  sick,  wounded,  and  dying 
soldiers,  who,  according  to  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare,  are 
entitled  to  the  sacred  protection  of  even  the  enemy,  whether  in  or 
out  of  their  territory  and  possession.  We  have  now  found  Davis 
and  his  agents  in  Canada  planning  and  carrying  out  schemes  for 
assassination  or  murder  by  wholesale,  by  spreading  pestilence, 
poisoning  of  reservoirs,  burning  cities,  hospitals,  and  boats  on 
their  way  loaded  with  passengers,  and  by  the  use  of  explosives 
murdering  women.  Human  life,  under  any  imaginable  conditions 
of  existence,  received  no  consideration  at  their  hands  if  its  sacrifice 
held  out  to  them  any  prospect  of  advancing  their  cause. 

Another  foul  plot  to  murder  prisoners  of  war  held  in  Libby 
Prison,  right  under  the  eyes  of  Davis  and  his  Cabinet,  is  detailed 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  143 

as   follows    by   Erastus   W.   Ross,  a   witness    before  the  Commis 
sion  :  — 

"  I  was  in  the  service  of  the  rebel  government.  I  was  con 
scripted  and  detailed  as  a  clerk  at  Libby  Prison,  and  never  served 
in  the  army.  In  March,  1864,  General  Kilpatrick  was  making  a 
raid  in  the  direction  of  Richmond.  About  that  time  the  prison 
was  mined.  I  saw  the  place  where  I  was  told  the  powder  was 
buried  under  the  prison ;  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  building. 
The  powder  was  put  there  secretly  in  the  night.  I  never  saw  it, 
but  I  saw  the  fuse.  It  was  put  in  the  office.  I  was  away  at  my 
uncle's  the  night  that  the  powder  was  put  there,  and  was  told  of 
it  the  next  morning  by  one  of  the  colored  men  at  the  prison. 
There  were  two  sentinels  near  the  place  to  prevent  any  person 
approaching  it.  The  excavation  made  was  about  the  size  of  a 
barrel  head,  and  the  earth  was  thrown  up  loosely  over  it.  Major 
Turner,  the  commandant  of  the  prison,  had  charge  of  the  fuse. 
He  told  me  that  the  powder  was  there,  and  that  the  fuse  was  to 
set  it  off ;  that  it  was  put  there  for  the  security  of  the  prisoners, 
and  if  the  army  got  in  it  was  to  be  set  off  for  the  purpose  of 
blowing  up  the  prison  and  the  prisoners.  The  powder  was 
secretly  taken  out  in  May,  and  the  whole  building  was  then  shut 
up.  The  prisoners  had  all  been  sent  to  Macon,  Ga.  I  sup 
pose  the  powder  was  placed  there  by  the  authority  of  General 
Winder  or  the  Secretary  of  War.  Major  Turner  said  he  was 
acting  under  the  authority  of  the  rebel  war  department,  though 
I  never  saw  any  written  orders  about  it." 

John  Latouche  testified  as  follows:  "  I  was  first  lieutenant  in 
Company  B,  Twenty-fifth  Virginia  Battallion,  C.  S.  A.  I  was 
detailed  to  post  duty  in  Richmond  to  regulate  the  details  of  the 
guards  of  the  military  prisons  there,  and  in  March,  1864,  I  was 
on  duty  at  Libby  Prison.  Major  Turner,  the  keeper  of  the 
prison,  told  me  that  he  was  going  to  see  General  Winder  about 
the  guard.  On  his  return  he  told  me  that  General  Winder  himself 
had  been  to  see  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  that  they  were  going 
to  put  powder  under  the  prison.  In  the  morning  of  the  same 
clay  the  powder  was  brought.  There  were  two  kegs  of  about 
twenty-five  pounds  each,  and  a  box  which  contained  about  as 


144  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

much  as  the  kegs.  A  hole  was  dug  in  the  centre  of  the  middle 
basement,  and  the  powder  was  put  down  there.  The  box  when 
put  in  just  came  level  with  the  ground,  and  the  place  was  covered 
over  with  gravel.  I  did  not  see  any  fuse  to  it  then.  I  placed  a 
sentry  over  this  powder  so  that  no  accident  might  occur,  and  the 
next  day  Major  Turner,  who  had  charge  of  the  fuse,  showed  it  to 
us  in  his  office ;  he  showed  it  to  everybody  there.  It  was  a  long- 
fuse  made  of  gutta-percha,  such  a  one  as  I  had  never  seen  before. 
In  May,  I  think  it  was,  Major  Turner  went  South,  and  all  of  the 
prisoners  were  sent  out  of  the  Libby  building  proper  to  the 
south ;  and  General  Winder  sent  a  note  down  to  the  office  with 
directions  to  take  up  the  powder  as  privately  or  as  secretly  as 
possible.  I  forget  his  exact  words.  The  note  was  delivered  into 
my  hands  for  the  inspector  of  the  prison,  to  whom  I  either  gave 
or  sent  it.  I  afterward  heard  Major  Turner  say  that  in  the  event 
of  the  raiders  coming  into  Richmond  he  would  have  blown  up  the 
prison.  I  understood  him  to  say  those  were  his  orders." 

We  are  not  left,  however,  to  infer  that  this  gunpowder  plot,  by 
which  the  lives  of  twelve  hundred  Union  officers  held  as  prisoners 
of  war  were  to  have  been  sacrificed  in  case  Colonel  Dahlgren 
should  have  gotten  into  the  city  for  the  purpose  of  their  libera 
tion,  was  authorized  by  the  head  of  the  rebel  government. 

The  box  turned  over  by  General  Johnson  to  General  Schofield» 
containing  the  archives  of  the  Confederate  government,  contained 
the  proof  that  Jefferson  Davis  ordered  these  preparations  to  be 
made,  and  that  his  subordinates  had  orders  to  carry  the  plot  into* 
execution  in  the  event  of  the  contingency  above  referred  to. 
These  archives  also  showed  that  in  this  he  was  sustained  by  the 
committee  of  the  rebel  congress  on  the  conduct  of  the  war. 
Pollard,  also,  in  his  history  of  the  "Lost  Cause,"  attempts  to  justify 
this  plot.  In  all  this  we  see  the  debasing  influence  of  human 
bondage  on  the  moral  sense  of  a  people.  Who,  except  under  the 
influence  of  such  a  demoralization,  could  have  planned  for  the 
wholesale  sacrifice  of  their  prisoners  of  war? 

Here  we  have  Mr.  Seddon,  the  rebel  Secretary  of  War,  of  course 
not  on  his  own  responsibility,  but  under  the  orders  of  his  supe 
rior,  Jefferson  Davis,  ordering  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  pris- 


ATROCITIES  NOT  EMBRACED   IN    THE    CHARGE.  145 

oners  of  war  in  their  possession  to  mine  the  building  in  which 
they  were  confined,  and  in  the  event  of  a  Yankee  raid  entering 
the  city,  to  blow  up  the  building,  and  thus  murder,  at  one  fell 
swoop,  all  the  prisoners  in  it  to  prevent  their  being  rescued  and 
taken  back  into  the  service.  Need  we  wonder  that  an  adminis 
tration  that  could  deliberately  prepare  to  murder  its  prisoners  of 
war  rather  than  surfer  their  liberation  under  the  fortunes  of  war, 
should  have  deliberately  planned  for  the  destruction  of  its  pris 
oners  by  the  starvation  and  cruelties  of  Andersonville? 

It  gives  me  no  pleasure  to  rehearse  these  things,  but  it  is  due  to 
the  truth  of  history  that  they  should  be  known.  I  desire  to  see  a 
speedy  and  complete  reconciliation  of  these  two  sections  of  our 
country ;  and  I  have  always  rejoiced  that  we  who  faced  each 
other  on  the  fields  of  deadly  conflict,  have,  from  the  time  of  the 
surrender  of  Lee's  army,  been  ready  to  meet  each  other  as  friends 
and  brothers  and  fellow  citizens  of  a  common  country.  The 
sight  witnessed  at  Appomattox  of  the  soldiers  of  our  army  empty 
ing  their  haversacks  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  men  who  but  the 
hour  before  stood  confronting  them  as  foes,  but  who  now  had  laid 
down  their  arms,  worn  out  and  famishing,  was  a  glorious  exhibi 
tion  of  the  best  side  of  our  nature,  and  plainly  said  that  though  we 
had  been  enemies  in  war  in  peace  we  would  be  friends,  and  fore 
shadowed  the  speedy  reconciliation  that  has  followed  our  terrible 
strife,  so  far  as  the  soldiers  of  the  two  armies  are  concerned.  I 
charge  none  of  these  things  on  these  men.  I  fix  the  responsibility 
for  these  things  on  the  political  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  and  not 
even  on  them  indiscriminately  but  only  on  such  of  them  as  are 
named  in  the  charge  and  specifications  under  which,  through  the 
medium  of  the  Commission,  they  were  arraigned  before  the  world, 
and  the  evidence  of  their  guilt  was  produced.  It  is  to  show  that 
the  government  in  so  doing  completely  vindicated  its  dignity  and 
honor  that  I  write. 

If  the  acts  of  public  men  render  them  infamous  in  history,  the 
responsibility  rests  in  their  bad  exercise  of  that  freedom  of  will 
that  makes  us  responsible  beings.1  And  in  human  affairs,  bad 

1  The  archives  of  the  rebel  war  department  reveal  the  fact  that  the  powder  was 
placed  under  the  Libby  Prison  by  order  of  Davis  and  Seddon,  sanctioned  by  a  com 
mittee  of  the  rebel  congress. 


146  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

examples  should  be  held  up  as  warnings,  just  as  good  examples 
should  be  held  up  for  imitation  and   encouragement. 

We  shall  now  approach  a  little  more  closely  to  the  consideration 
of  the  responsibility  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  Canada  Cabinet 
for  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln ;  and  will  show,  we 
think,  by  incontestible  evidence,  that  they  were  co-conspirators 
with  Booth  and  his  gang,  or  rather,  that  they  originated  and 
concocted  the  plan,  and  that  Booth  and  his  followers  were  merely 
their  hired  assassins  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purposes. 


CHAPTER  XL 

EVIDENCE    PRESENTED     BY    THE     GOVERNMENT    TO    SUSTAIN    ITS 
CHARGE   AND    SPECIFICATIONS. 

THE  following  letter  was  found  in  the  box  turned  over  by 
General  Joseph  A.  Johnson,  at  Charlotte,  N.C.,  to  General  Scho- 
field,  and  said  to  contain  the  archives  of  the  Confederate  govern 
ment  :  — 

MONTGOMERY,  WHITE  SULPHUR  SPRINGS,  VA. 

To  His  EXCELLENCY,  the  President  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America:  — 

DEAR  SIR: — I  have  been  thinking  for  some  time  that  I  would  make  this  communica 
tion  to  you,  but  have  been  deterred  from  doing  so  on  account  of  ill  health.  I  now  offer 
you  my  services,  and  if  you  will  favor  me  in  my  designs,  I  will  proceed,  as  soon  as 
my  health  will  permit,  to  rid  my  country  of  some  of  her  deadliest  enemies,  by  striking 
at  the  very  heart's  blood  of  those  who  seek  to  enchain  her  in  slavery.  I  consider 
nothing  dishonorable  having  such  a  tendency.  All  I  ask  of  you  is  to  favor  me  by 
granting  me  the  necessary  passes,  etc.,  on  which  to  travel  while  in  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Confederate  government.  I  am  perfectly  familiar  with  the  North,  and  feel  con 
fident  I  can  execute  anything  I  undertake.  I  am  just  returned  from  within  their 
lines.  I  am  a  lieutenant  in  General  Duke's  command,  and  I  was  on  the  raid  last 
June  in  Kentucky  under  General  John  H.  Morgan.  I  and  all  of  my  command  except 
ing  about  three  or  four,  and  two  commissioned  officers,  were  taken  prisoners  ;  but 
finding  a  good  opportunity,  while  being  taken  to  prison,  I  made  my  escape  from  them. 
Dressing  myself  in  the  garb  of  a  citizen,  I  attempted  to  pass  through  the  mountains, 
but  finding  that  impossible,  narrowly  escaping  two  or  three  times  from  being  retaken, 
I  shaped  my  course  north,  and  went  through  to  the  Canadas,  from  where,  by  the  assist 
ance  of  Colonel  Holcomb,  I  succeeded  in  making  my  way  around  and  through  the 
blockade;  but  having  yellow  fever,  etc.,  at  Bermuda,  I  have  been  rendered  unfit  for 
service  since  my  arrival.  I  was  reared  up  in  the  State  of  Alabama,  and  educated  in  its 
university.  Both  the  Secretary  of  War  and  his  assistant,  Judge  Campbell,  are  per 
sonally  acquainted  with  my  father,  William  J.  Alston,  of  the  fifth  Congressional  Dis 
trict  of  Alabama,  having  served  in  the  time  of  the  old  Congress,  in  the  years  1849-50 
and  1851.  If  I  do  anything  for  you,  I  shall  expect  your  full  confidence  in  return.  If 
you  do  this,  I  can  render  you  and  my  country  very  important  service.  Let  me  hear 
from  you  soon.  I  am  anxious  to  be  doing  something,  and  having  no  command  at 
present,  all,  or  nearly  all,  being  in  garrison,  I  desire  that  you  favor  nu  in  this  a  short 

H7 


148  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

time.     I  would  like  to  have  a  personal  interview  with  you,  in  order  to  perfect  the 
arrangements  before  starting. 

I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

LIEUTENANT  W.  ALSTON. 

This  letter,  it  will  be  observed,  is  without  date ;  but  the  box  in 
which  it  was  found  was  marked,  "  Adjutant  and  Inspector  Gen 
eral's  Office;  letters  received  July  to  December,  1864."  Lieu 
tenant  Alston  was  captured  in  Kentucky  in  June,  1864,  and  so, 
in  making  his  escape  through  Canada,  made  the  acquaintance  of 
the  rebel  agents  there,  just  at  the  time  that  they  were  full  of 
the  assassination  scheme.  It  was  probably  from  his  intercourse 
with  them  that  he  became  infatuated  with  this  idea,  although  he 
does  not  give  them  the  credit  of  it.  He  seems  to  have  been  art 
ambitious  youth  who  desired  to  impress  the  rebel  President  with 
the  idea  that  this  was  an  original  scheme  of  his  own.  Mark  how 
unblushingly  he  opens  his  mind  to  Davis  in  presenting  his  plot ! 
It  is  nothing  less  than  "  striking  at  the  heart's  blood  of  some  of 
his  country's  deadliest  foes,"  of  whom  everybody  then  knew  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  universally  regarded  in  the  South  as 
chief.  It  is  a  plain  offer  to  aid  his  country's  cause  by  entering 
upon  the  policy  of  assassinating  the  loyal  men  of  the  country 
whose  official  duty  required  them  to  put  down  the  rebellion.. 
He  considers  nothing  dishonorable  that  tends  to  accomplish 
this.  He  does  not  merely  propose  to  strike  at  the  heart's  blood 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  No ;  like  the  Canada  conspirators,  he  has  a 
more  comprehensive  scheme.  Did  Jefferson  Davis  feel  insulted 
by  being  thought  capable  of  giving  his  sanction  to  such  a  foul  and 
dishonorable  proposition?  Let  us  see. 

The  following  is  his  endorsement  put  upon  it :  — 

INDORSEMENT. 

A.  i.  390.  Lieut.  W.  Alston,  Montgomery,  Sulphur  Springs,  Va.  (no  date).  Is 
Lieutenant  in  General  Duke's  command.  Accompanied  raid  into  Kentucky  and  was- 
captured,  but  escaped  into  Canada,  from  whence  he  found  his  way  back.  Been  in  bad 
health.  Now  offers  his  services  to  rid  the  country  of  some  of  its  deadliest  enemies. 
Asks  for  papers  to  permit  him  to  travel  within  the  jurisdiction  of  this  government.. 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY   THE    GOVERNMENT.  149 

Would  like  to  have  an  interview  and  explain.     Respectfully  referred,  by  direction  of 

the  President,  to  the  Honorable  Secretary  of  War. 

BURTON  N.  HARRISON, 

Private  Secretary. 
Received  November  iQth,  1864. 
Recorded  book  A.A.G.O.,  December  i6th,  1864. 
A.G.  for  attention. 

By  order  of  J.  A.  CAMPBELL,  A.S.W. 

The  handwriting  of  the  private  secretary  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
Burton  N.  Harrison,  and  of  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  J.  A. 
Campbell,  in  the  endorsements,  was  verified  before  the  Commis 
sion  by  Lewis  W.  Chamberlain,  who  had  been  a  clerk  in  the  war 
department  at  Richmond,  and  was  well  acquainted  with  the  hand 
writing  of  both  of  these  gentlemen. 

From  the  consideration  given  by  the  rebel  President,  as  shown 
by  these  careful  and  favorable  endorsements,  would  it  be  unreason 
able  to  conclude  that  Lieutenant  Alston  was  granted  the  interview 
that  he  desired,  and  that,  armed  with  the  permission  and  authority 
of  the  rebel  chief,  he  became  one  of  the  active  participants  in  the 
closing  scenes  of  the  drama? 

We  have  other  evidence  that  at  this  very  time  the  mind  of  Jef 
ferson  Davis  was  turned  in  this  direction,  and  that  he  was  inciting 
his  agents  in  Canada  to  turn  their  attention  to  a  grand  political 
scheme  of  wholesale  assassinations. 

To  show  the  moral  obtundity  of  the  political  stay-at-home-and- 
fight  rebels  about  this  time,  I  will  reproduce  an  advertisement  of 
this  proposition  to  assassinate  President  Lincoln  and  the  other 
civil  officers  of  the  government,  that  was  published  in  the  Selma 
(Alabama)  Dispatch,  in  December,  1 864,  under  the  caption  — 

"MILLION   DOLLARS   FOR   ASSASSINATION 

"  One  million  dollars  wanted  to  have  peace  by  the  ist  of  March.  If  the  citizens  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy  will  furnish  me  with  the  cash,  or  good  securities  for  the  sum 
of  one  million  dollars,  I  will  cause  the  lives  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  H.  Seward, 
and  Andrew  Johnson  to  be  taken  by  the  ist  of  March  next.  This  will  give  us  peace, 
and  satisfy  the  world  that  cruel  tyrants  cannot  live  in  a  land  of  liberty.  If  this  is  not 
accomplished,  nothing  will  be  claimed  beyond  the  sum  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  in 
advance,  which  is  supposed  to  be  necessary  to  reach  and  slaughter  the  three  villains. 
I  will  give,  myself,  one  thousand  dollars  towards  this  patriotic  purpose.  Every  one 
wishing  to  contribute  will  address  Box  X,  Cahawba,  Alabama.  December  ist,  1864." 


150  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

This  advertisement  was  proven  by  compositors  in  the  Dispatch 
office  to  have  been  put  in  that  paper  by  Mr.  G.  VV.  Gale,  a  law 
yer  of  considerable  reputation,  and  that  the  copy  was  in  his  hand 
writing,  which  was  well  known  at  that  office.  My  impression  is 
that  several  of  the  Richmond  papers  reproduced  this  advertisement, 
as  also  many  other  papers  in  the  Confederacy.  The  treasonable 
purpose  to  overthrow  the  Constitution  by  the  assassination  of  the 
President,  Vice-President,  and  Secretary  of  State  shows  that  the 
plan  had  been  maturely  considered  in  the  light  of  the  condi 
tions  that  would  render  it  most  effective  in  securing  the  object  in 
view,  and  that  it  was  a  deep  political  scheme  to  give  the  rebellion 
a  new  lease  of  life,  and  put  it  on  its  feet  again  under  more  favor 
able  conditions  for  success.  I  have  already  given  incidentally,  and 
in  a  fragmentary  way,  glimpses  of  the  testimony  on  which  the 
charges  of  the  government  were  founded.  I  will  now  present  in 
a  connected  form  the  testimony  bearing  on  the  question. 

Richard  Montgomery  testified  before  the  Commission  that 
Thompson  said  to  him  in  the  summer  of  1864  that  he  had  his 
friends  all  over  the  North,  and  that  he  could  have  anybody  put  out 
of  his  way  that  he  chose ;  that  he  would  only  have  to  point  out  the 
man  that  he  considered  in  his  way,  and  his  friends  would  remove 
him,  and  would  consider  it  no  crime  when  done  for  the  cause  of 
the  Confederacy.  Clay  also,  on  being  told  by  Montgomery  what 
Thompson  had  said,  replied,  "  That  is  so  ;  we  are  all  devoted  to  our 
cause  and  ready  to  go  any  lengths  —  to  do  anything  in  the  world 
to  serve  our  cause."  Thompson  said  his  friends  would  do  this  and 
not  let  him  know  anything  about  it  if  necessary.  That  this  was 
not  mere  bragadocio  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  Montgomery 
was  accepted  by  Thompson  as  a  confederate  in  full  sympathy  with 
himself,  and  entitled  to  his  fullest  confidence. 

Merritt  testified  that  he -first  heard  of  the  assassination  plot  in 
October  or  November,  1864,  when  he  was  told  by  Young,  in  reply 
to  an  inquiry  of  Merritt  in  regard  to  a  contemplated  raid  :  "  We 
have  something  on  the  tapis  of  much  more  importance  than  any 
raids  we  have  made,  or  can  make."  He  said,  "  It  was  determined 
that  Old  Abe  should  never  be  inaugurated."  He  said  they  had 
plenty  of  friends  in  Washington ;  and  speaking  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  he 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY    THE    GOVERNMENT.  151 

called  him  a  damned  old  tyrant.  Merritt  was  afterwards  intro 
duced  to  George  N.  Sanders  by  Colonel  Steele,  and  in  the  course  of 
the  conversation  that  ensued,  Steele  said,  "  the  damned  old  tyrant 
will  never  serve  another  term  if  he  is  elected."  Sanders  replied, 
"  he  (Lincoln)  would  have  to  keep  himself  mighty  close  if  he  did 
serve  another  term."  In  January,  1865,  Thompson  told  Mont 
gomery  that  a  proposition  had  been  made  to  him  to  rid  the  world 
of  the  tyrant  Lincoln,  Stanton,  Grant,  and  some  others.  He  said 
he  knew  the  men  that  made  the  proposition  to  be  bold,  daring  men, 
and  able  to  execute  anything  they  would  undertake  without  regard 
to  cost.  He  said  he  was  in  favor  of  the  proposition,  but  had  con 
cluded  to  defer  giving  his  answer  until  he  should  have  consulted 
with  his  government  at  Richmond ;  and  that  he  was  only  waiting 
for  their  approval ;  adding  that  he  thought  it  would  be  a  great 
blessing  to  the  people,  both  North  and  South,  to  have  these  men: 
killed.  Beverly  Tucker,  in  a  conversation  with  Montgomery  after  the 
assassination,  recounting  the  many  wrongs  the  South  had  received 
at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  said,  "  that  he  deserved  his  death,  and 
it  was  a  pity  he  had  not  met  it  long  ago ;  that  it  was  too  bad  that 
the  boys  had  not  been  allowed  to  act  when  they  wanted  to." 

Conover  testified  that  he  saw  Booth  in  Montreal  about  the  latter 
part  of  October,  1864.  He  was  strutting  about  the  St.  Lawrence 
Hall,  playing  billiards,  etc.,  but  occasionally  was  to  be  seen  in  con 
fidential  intercourse  with  Sanders  and  Thompson. 

Whilst  in  Canada  at  this  time  the  plot  to  assassinate  was  fully 
decided  upon,  as  will  be  shown  by  the  "  Selby  letter  "  subjoined. 
This  letter  was  picked  up  in  a  street  car  in  New  York  by  a  couple 
of  ladies,  one  of  whom,  Mrs.  Mary  Hudspeth,  testified  before  the 
Commission  as  follows:  "  In  November  last,  after  the  presidential 
election,  and  on  the  day  that  General  Butler  left  New  York,  as  I 
was  riding  on  the  Third  Avenue  cars  in  New  York  City,  I  over 
heard  a  conversation  of  two  men.  They  were  talking  most  earn 
estly.  One  of  them  said  he  would  leave  for  Washington  day  after 
to-morrow.  The  other  was  going  to  Newburg  or  New  Berne  that 
night.  One  of  the  two  was  a  young  man  with  false  whiskers.  This 
I  observed  when  a  jolt  of  the  car  pushed  his  hat  forward  and  at  the 
same  time  pushed  his  whiskers,  by  which  I  observed  that  the  front 


152  ASSASSLVATION   OF  UXL'Ol.X. 

face  was  darker  than  it  was  under  the  whiskers.  Judging  by  his 
conversation,  he  was  a  young  man  of  education.  The  other,  whose 
name  was  Johnson,  was  not.  I  noticed  that  the  hand  of  the  younger 
man  was  very  beautiful,  and  showed  that  he  had  led  a  life  of  ease 
and  not  of  labor. 

"  They  exchanged  letters  whilst  in  the  car.  When  the  one  who 
had  the  false  whiskers  put  back  the  letters  in  his  pocket,  I  saw  a 
pistol  in  his  belt.  I  overheard  the  younger  one  say  that  he  would 
leave  for  Washington  the  day  after  to-morrow.  The  other  was 
very  angry  because  it  had  not  fallen  on  him  to  go  to  Washington. 
Both  left  the  cars  before  I  did.  After  they  had  left,  my  daughter, 
who  was  with  me,  picked  up  a  letter  which  was  lying  on  the  floor 
of  the  car,  immediately  under  where  they  sat,  and  gave  it  to  me, 
and  I,  thinking  it  was  mine,  as  I  had  letters  of  my  own  to  post  at 
the  Nassau  Street  Post-office,  took  it  without  noticing  that  it  was 
not  one  of  my  own.  When  I  got  to  the  brokers,  where  I  was 
going  with  some  gold,  I  noticed  an  envelope  with  two  letters  in  it. 
These  are  the  letters,  and  both  were  contained  in  one  envelope. 
After  I  examined  the  letters  and  found  their  character,  I  took 
them  first  to  General  Scott,  who  asked  me  to  read  them  to  him. 
He  said  he  thought  they  were  of  great  importance,  and  asked  me 
to  take  them  to  General  Dix.  I  did  so.  The  letters  are  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  DEAR  Louis:  —  The  time  has  at  last  come  that  we  have  all  so  wished  for,  and 
upon  you  everything  depends.  As  it  was  decided  before  you  left,  we  were  to  cast  lots. 
Accordingly  we  did  so,  and  you  are  to  be  the  Charlotte  Corday  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury.  When  you  remember  the  fearful,  solemn  vow  that  was  taken  by  us  you  will  feel 
there  is  no  drawback  —  Abe  must  die,  and  now.  You  can  choose  your  weapons  —  the 
cup,  the  knife,  the  bullet.  The  cup  failed  us  once,  and  might  again.  Johnson,  who 
will  give  this,  has  been  like  an  enraged  demon  since  the  meeting  because  it  has  not 
fallen  upon  him  to  rid  the  world  of  the  monster.  He  says  the  blood  of  his  gray-haired 
father  and  his  noble  brother  call  on  him  for  revenge,  and  revenge  he  will  have;  if  he 
cannot  wreak  it  upon  the  fountain  head,  he  will  upon  some  of  the  blood-thirsty  generals. 
Butler  would  suit  him.  As  our  plans  were  all  concocted  and  well  arranged,  we  sep 
arated;  and  as  I  am  writing  on  my  way  to  Detroit,  I  will  only  say  that  all  rests  upon 
you.  You  know  where  to  find  your  friends.  Your  disguises  are  so  perfect  and  com 
plete,  that  without  one  knew  your  face  no  police  telegraphic  despatch  would  catch  you. 
The  English  gentleman,  Harcourt,  must  not  act  hastily.  Remember  he  has  ten  days. 
Strike  for  your  home,  strike  for  your  country;  bide  your  time,  but  strike  sure.  Get 
introduced,  congratulate  him,  listen  to  his  stories  —  not  many  more  will  the  brute  tell 
to  earthly  friends.  Do  anything  but  fail,  and  meet  us  at  the  appointed  place  within 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY   THE    GOVERNMENT,  153 

the  fortnight.  Inclose  this  note,  together  with  one  of  poor  Leenea.  I  will  give  the 
reason  for  this  when  we  meet.  Return  by  Johnson.  I  wish  I  could  go  to  you,  but 
duty  calls  me  to  the  West;  you  will  probably  hear  from  me  in  Washington.  Sanders 
is  doing  us  no  good  in  Canada. 

"  Believe  me  your  brother  in  love, 

"  CHARLES  SELBY." 

"ST.   Louis,  October  2ist,  1864. 

"  DEAREST  HUSBAND:  — \Vhy  do  you  not  come  home?  You  left  me  for  ten  days 
only,  and  now  you  have  been  from  home  more  than  two  weeks.  In  that  long  time, 
only  sent  me  one  short  note  —  a  few  cold  words  —  and  a  check  for  money,  which  I  did 
not  require.  What  has  come  over  you?  Have  you  forgotten  your  wife  and  child? 
Baby  calls  for  papa  until  my  heart  aches.  We  are  so  lonely  without  you.  I  have  written 
to  you  again  and  again,  and,  as  a  last  resource,  yesterday  wrote  to  Charlie,  begging 
him  to  see  you  and  tell  you  to  come  home.  I  am  so  ill  —  not  able  to  leave  my  room; 
if  I  was,  I  would  go  to  you  wherever  you  were,  if  in  this  world.  Mamma  says  I  must 
not  write  any  more,  as  I  am  too  weak.  Louis,  darling,  do  not  stay  away  any  longer 
from  your  heart-broken  wife, 

"  LEENEA." 

General  Dix  sent  these  letters  to  the  War  Department  at  Wash 
ington.  They  were  given  to  President  Lincoln,  who  put  them  in 
an  envelope,  marked  it  "  Assassination,"  and  laid  it  away  in  his 
desk,  where  it  was  found  after  his  death.  Mrs.  Hudspeth  testified 
that  she  picked  these  letters  up  on  the  day  that  General  Butler 
left  New  York.  General  Butler  had  orders  to  leave  on  the  iith 
of  November,  but  upon  application  got  permission  to  remain  until 
the  1 4th.  Booth  left  Washington  on  the  early  morning  train  on 
November  I  ith,  which  would  put  him  into  New  York  on  the  after 
noon  of  that  day.  Here  he  met  his  co-conspirator,  Johnson,  on 
the  cars,  and  in  exchanging  letters  with  him,  dropped  these  letters 
without  noticing  it.  The  Leenea  letter  was  to  have  been  returned 
by  Johnson.  He  was  to  leave  for  Washington  on  the  day  after 
to-morrow,  which,  reckoning  from  the  iith,  would  be  the  I3th. 
The  hotel  register  accounts  for  him  again  at  Washington  on  the 
1 4th  in  the  early  part  of  the  evening.  That  the  young  man 
described  by  Mrs.  Hudspeth  was  John  Wilkes  Booth  was  shown 
by  her  recognition  of  his  photograph,  shown  to  her  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Commission,  when  she  declared  that  that  was  the  same 
face.1 

1  The  Charles  Selby  letter  was  proven  to  be  in  the  handwriting  of  John  Wilkes 
Booth  by  experts,  on  comparison,  on  the  trial  of  Tohn  H.  Surratt. 


154  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

It  was  also  shown  by  the  testimony  of  Samuel  Knapp  Chester,  the 
actor,  that  Booth  was  in  New  York  about  this  time,  laboring  with 
Chester  in  the  most  urgent  manner  to  draw  him  into  the  conspiracy. 
It  is  true  he  represented  to  him  that  the  purpose  was  to  capture  the 
President,  and  carry  him  a  prisoner  to  Richmond ;  that  this  feat 
was  to  be  performed  at  Ford's  Theatre  in  Washington,  and  that 
Chester's  part  in  it  would  be  the  easy  one  of  simply  opening  the 
door  of  exit  on  a  given  signal ;  but  can  any  sane  man  believe  that 
this  was  his  purpose  ?  The  impracticability  of  this  proposition  could 
not  but  have  been  as  apparent  to  Booth  as  it  was  to  Chester,  who 
begged  Booth,  finally,  to  never  mention  the  subject  to  him  again. 
It  is  evident  Booth  intended  to  withhold  from  Chester  his  real 
purpose  until  he  could  get  him  irrevocably  committed  to  the 
conspiracy.  The  letter  which  he  had  dropped,  and  which  I  have 
given  above,  reveals  the  real  purpose  of  the  conspiracy.  It 
will  be  seen  by  this  letter  that  it  was  in  contemplation  at  that 
time  to  act  at  once,  or  at  least  as  soon  as  a  good  opportu 
nity  should  be  found,  or  could  be  made.  He  who  was  "to  be 
the  Charlotte  Corday  of  the  nineteenth  century  "  had  his  choice 
as  to  the  weapons  he  should  use ;  but  whether  it  should  be  the 
cup,  the  knife,  or  the  bullet,  it  simply  meant  death.  Why  was 
not  the  purpose  carried  out  at  that  time  as  arranged  for  at  the 
meeting  to  which  the  letter  refers  ?  As  will  be  shown  by  the  sub 
sequent  testimony,  the  assassins  were  restrained  from  present  action 
by  the  agents  of  the  rebel  government  in  Canada,  who  desired  to 
have  explicit  sanction  to  the  arrangements  they  had  made  as  to 
the  compensation,  and  authority  for  the  expenditure  it  involved. 

Let  us  see  now  how  the  testimony  connects  the  rebel  agents  in 
Canada  with  this  meeting  that  was  held  in  the  latter  part  of  Octo 
ber,  or  first  of  November,  1864,  and  with  its  conclusions,  which 
resulted  in  arrangements  for  these  assassinations.  Montgomery 
testified  that  in  January,  1865,  Jacob  Thompson  told  him  that  a 
proposition  had  been  made  to  him  to  rid  the  world  of  the  tyrant 
Lincoln,  Stanton,  Grant,  and  some  others.  The  men  who  had 
made  the  proposition,  he  said,  he  knew  to  be  bold,  daring  men, 
and  able  to  execute  anything  they  would  undertake  without  regard 
to  cost.  He  said  he  was  in  favor  of  the  proposition  but  had 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY    THE    GOVERNMENT.  155 

determined  to  defer  his  answer  until  he  had  consulted  with  his 
government  at  Richmond,  and  he  was  then  only  waiting  their 
approval,  adding  that  he  thought  it  would  be  a  blessing  to  the 
people,  both  North  and  South,  to  have  these  men  killed.  A  few 
days  after  the  assassination,  Montgomery  had  a  conversation  with 
Beverly  Tucker  in  Montreal.  He  said  a  great  deal  about  the 
wrongs  the  South  had  received  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 
that  he  deserved  his  death,  and  it  was  a  pity  he  had  not  met  with 
it  long  ago.  He  said  "  It  was  too  bad  that  the  boys  had  not  been 
allowed  to  act  when  they  wanted  to."  Thus  we  see  that  "  the 
boys  "  were  kept  back  from  the  execution  of  the  plot  for  which 
they  had  made  ready  late  in  October,  or  early  in  November,  at 
the  meeting  referred  to  in  the  Selby  letter,  by  Thompson  and  his 
clique,  who  had  concluded  to  defer  it  until  they  should  have 
obtained  the  sanction  of  their  government  at  Richmond  to  their 
arrangements,  which  no  doubt  involved  the  expenditure  of  a  large 
sum  of  money.  Montgomery  at  this  time  related  a  portion  of  the 
conversation  with  Thompson,  given  above,  to  William  C.  Cleary, 
who  was  Thompson's  confidential  secretary,  when  Cleary  told  him 
that  Booth  was  one  of  the  men  to  whom  Thompson  referred ;  and 
speaking  of  the  assassination,  he  said  "  It  was  too  bad  that  the 
whole  work  had  not  been  done,"  adding,  "They  had  better  look 
out;  we  have  not  done  yet."  Cleary  told  Montgomery  during 
this  conversation  that  Booth  had  been  there  visiting  Thompson 
twice  in  the  winter ;  the  last  time  he  thought  was  in  December. 

That  Cleary  was  well  acquainted  with  all  that  Thompson^ 
Tucker,  and  Clay  were  doing  is  clear  from  the  relation  he  sus 
tained  to  Thompson ;  and  Thompson  himself  told  Montgomery 
that  Cleary  was  posted  in  all  his  affairs,  and  that  if  he  (Mont 
gomery)  sought  him  at  any  time  when  he  was  absent,  he  could 
confide  his  business  to  Cleary. 

Conover  testified  that  he  called  on  Thompson,  in  the  early  part 
of  February,  1865,  to  make  some  inquiry  about  the  intended  raid 
on  Ogdensburg,  when  Thompson  said  to  him,  "  There  is  a  bet 
ter  opportunity,  a  better  chance  to  immortalize  yourself  and  save 
your  country."  Conover  replied  that  he  was  willing  to  do  any 
thing  to  save  the  country.  Thompson  then  said,  "  Some  of  our 


156  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

* 

boys  are  going  to  play  a  grand  joke  on  Abe  and  Andy."  Upon 
Conover  asking  him  for  a  further  explanation,  he  said,  "  It  was  to 
kill  them,  or,  rather,  to  remove  them  from  office."  He  said,  "  it 
was  only  removing  them  from  office ;  that  the  killing  of  a  tyrant 
was  no  murder."  He  told  Conover  then,  or  subsequently,  that 
he  had  conferred  a  commission  on  Booth  for  this  purpose,  and 
would  commission  all  who  engaged  in  it,  so  that  whether  it  suc 
ceeded  or  failed,  if  they  escaped  to  Canada,  they  could  not  be 
claimed  under  the  extradition  treaty.  The  Confederate  govern 
ment  kept  these  Canada  agents  supplied  with  commissions  in 
blank,  to  be  filled  up  by  them  at  their  pleasure,  to  cover  cases 
like  these.  In  this  conversation  of  Thompson  with  Conover,  in 
February,  in  which  he  was  endeavoring  to  enlist  Conover  in  the 
plot,  he  argued  that  killing  a  tyrant  in  such  a  case  was  no  mur 
der,  and  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  read  the  work  entitled,  "Kill 
ing  no  Murder,"  a  letter  addressed  by  Colonel  Titus  to  Oliver 
Cromwell.  Mr.  Hamlin  was  to  have  been  included  in  the  scheme, 
had  it  been  put  into  execution  before  the  4th  of  March.  In  a  sub 
sequent  conversation  in  April,  Mr.  Hamlin  was  omitted,  and  Vice- 
President  Johnson  put  in  his  place.  We  here  again  see  the  political 
intent  of  this  scheme,  in  that  it  was  the  office,  not  the  man,  that 
was  really  the  subject  of  the  blow. 

Merritt  testified  to  an  interview  he  had  with  Harper,  Caldwell, 
Randall,  Charles  Holt,  and  a  man  called  "  Texas,"  at  the  Queen's 
Hotel,  in  Toronto,  on  the  6th  of  April,  1865.  Harper  said 
they  were  "  going  to  the  States,  and  were  going  to  kick  up  the 
damnedest  row  that  had  ever  been  heard  of."  He  said  to  Merritt, 
an  hour  or  two  afterwards,  that  "  if  he  (Merritt)  did  not  hear  of 
the  death  of  Old  Abe,  and  the  Vice-President,  and  General  Dix 
in  less  than  ten  days  he  might  put  him  down  as  a  damned  fool. 
We  have  now  had  abundant  proof  that  Thompson,  Clay,  Tucker, 
Sanders,  Cleary,  etc.,  were  guilty  of  combining,  confederating,  and 
conspiring  with  Booth,  and  the  others,  to  assassinate  Abraham 
Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson,  William  H.  Seward,  etc.  ;  that  this 
plot  originated  with  them,  and  that  they  diligently  prosecuted 
the  work  of  preparation  for  it  from  October,  1864,  until  its  denoue 
ment,  in  April,  1865.  It  appears  to  have  engrossed  their  minds; 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY    THE    GOVERNMENT.  157 

it  was  the  great  subject  of  conversation  in  all  of  their  secret  con 
claves,  the  great  burden  of  all  their  thoughts,  the  very  height  of 
their  ambition. 

Let  us  next  see  to  what  extent  the  head  of  the  rebel  Con 
federacy,  Jefferson  Davis,  is  implicated  in  it  by  the  evidence.  We 
have  already  seen  by  his  favorable  reception  of  the  Alston  letter 
and  the  endorsement  he  put  upon  it,  that  there  was  nothing  in  his 
mind  or  moral  nature  that  revolted  at  its  base,  cowardly,  and 
dishonorable  proposition  to  "  strike  at  the  very  heart's  blood  of 
some  of  our  country's  deadliest  foes."  On  the  contrary,  he  refers 
it  to  his  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  marked  "  For  attention." 

Having  obtained  this  index  to  the  state  of  his  mind,  we  find 
ourselves  prepared  to  receive  the  testimony  of  Dr.  J.  B.  Merritt  as 
to  a  letter  read  by  Sanders  in  a  meeting  of  rebels  in  Montreal, 
about  the  middle  of  February,  1865,  at  which  ten  or  fifteen  per 
sons  were  present,  amongst  whom  were  Sanders,  Colonel  Steele, 
Captain  Scott,  George  Young,  Byron  Hill,  Caldwell,  Ford,  Bene 
dict,  Kirk,  and  Merritt.  Sanders  said  he  had  received  the  letter 
from  "  the  President  of  our  Confederacy"  (meaning  Jefferson 
Davis).  The  substance  of  this  letter  was,  that  if  the  confederates 
in  Canada  and  in  the  States  were  willing  to  submit  to  be  governed 
by  such  a  tyrant  as  Lincoln  he  did  not  wish  to  recognize  them  as 
friends  and  associates,  and  he  expressed  his  approbation  of  any 
measures  they  might  take  to  accomplish  this  object.  It  is  true 
Dr.  Merritt  did  not  see  Davis's  signature  to  the  letter,  and  would 
not  have  known  it  had  he  seen  it,  but  the  letter  was  first  read 
openly  by  Sanders,  and  then  handed  to  the  others,  several  of 
whom  read  it,  and  none  questioned  either  its  author  or  authen 
ticity.  Colonel  Steele,  Young,  Hill,  and  Captain  Scott  read  it, 
and  no  objection  was  raised.  After  reading  this  letter,  Sanders 
went  on  to  name  a  number  of  persons  who  were  ready  and  will 
ing,  as  he  said,  to  engage  in  the  undertaking  to  remove  the  Presi 
dent,  Vice- President,  the  cabinet,  and  some  of  the  leading  generals, 
and  said  there  was  any  amount  of  money  to  accomplish  the  pur 
pose.  Amongst  the  persons  whom  he  said  thus  stood  ready  to 
engage  in  this  work,  he  named  Booth,  George  Harper,  Charles 
Caldwell,  one  Randall,  and  Harrison  (by  which  name  Surratt  was 


158  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

known),  and  one  or  two  others,  one  of  whom  they  called  "  Plug 
Tobacco,"  or  "  Port  Tobacco."  I  will  here  remark  that  Atzerodt 
was  sometimes  called  by  this  latter  name.  Sanders  said  that  Booth 
was  heart  and  soul  in  this  project  of  assassination,  and  felt  as  much 
as  any  person  could  feel,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  a  cousin  to 
Beall,  who  was  hung  in  New  York.  He  said  that  if  they  could 
dispose  of  Mr.  Lincoln  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  dispose  of 
Mr.  Johnson ;  he  was  such  a  drunken  sot  it  would  be  an  easy 
matter  to  dispose  of  him  in  some  of  his  drunken  revelries. 

When  Sanders  read  the  letter  he  also  spoke  of  Mr.  Seward.  "I 
inferred,"  says  Dr.  Merritt,  "  it  was  partially  the  language  of  the 
letter.  It  was,  I  think,  that  if  the  President,  Vice-President,  and 
Mr.  Seward  could  be  disposed  of,  it  would  be  satisfying  the  people 
of  the  North  that  they  (the  Southerners)  had  friends  in  the  North, 
and  that  peace  could  be  obtained  on  better  terms  than  could  be 
otherwise  obtained." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Booth  sent  to  Chester  fifty  dollars 
in  a  letter  when  trying  to  get  him  into  the  conspiracy,  and  that  at 
their  final  interview  in  February,  Chester  positively  refused  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  it,  and  returned  to  Booth  the  fifty  dollars  he 
had  received.  Booth  took  the  money,  saying  at  the  same  time  he 
would  not  do  so  only  he  was  short  of  funds.  He  had  told  Chester 
that  there  was  plenty  of  money  in  the  affair,  and  that  if  he  would 
join  he  would  never  want  for  money  again  as  long  as  he  lived. 
He  said,  however,  as  an  excuse  for  taking  back  the  fifty  dollars  he 
had  sent  him,  that  he  was  very  short  of  funds,  and  that  he,  or 
some  one,  would  have  to  go  to  Richmond  to  replenish.  Wiech- 
mann  testified  that  John  H.  Surratt  left  Washington  for  Richmond 
on  the  2/th  of  March,  and  returned  on  the  3d  of  April;  that  on 
his  return  he  showed  him  nine,  or  eleven,  twenty-dollar  gold 
pieces  and  sixty  dollars  in  currency.  Wiechmann  was  on  intimate 
terms  of  personal  intercourse  with  Surratt,  lived  in  the  same  house 
with  him,  and  was  with  him  daily  when  at  home,  and  expressed 
himself  as  quite  certain  that  he  had  no  gold  when  he  left  Wash 
ington.  He  was  not  engaged  in  any  business  by  which  he  could 
make  money.  His  mother  had  a  very  limited  income  from  the 
rent  of  her  farm  and  tavern,  and  kept  boarders  to  enable  her  to 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY    THE    GOVERNMENT.  159 

make  ends  meet;  yet  her  son  was,  constantly  spending  money  in 
traveling  about,  and  so  must  have  been  supplied  by  his  Canada 
friends,  whom  he  visited  occasionally ;  and  the  chief  calls  he  had 
for  expenditure  appear  to  have  arisen  from  his  prosecution  of  their 
schemes.  Returning  thus  from  Richmond  to  Washington  on  the 
3d  of  April,  he  left  the  same  evening,  according  to  Wiechmann, 
for  Canada. 

Conover  testified  that  he  saw  him  in  Montreal  on  the  6th  or  /th 
of  April,  in  Mr.  Thompson's  room,  and  he  learned  from  their 
conversation  that  Surratt  had  just  brought  despatches  from  Rich 
mond  to  Mr.  Thompson.  One  despatch  was  from  Mr.  Benjamin, 
the  rebel  Secretary  of  State,  and  one,  which  Conover  thought 
was  a  cipher  despatch,  from  Jefferson  Davis.  Conover  had  previ 
ously  been  solicited  by  Thompson  to  participate  in  this  work  of 
assassination,  and  so  was  freely  admitted  to  their  secret  councils. 
After  reading  these  letters  from  Davis  and  Benjamin,  Thompson, 
laying  his  hands  on  them,  said,  "  This  makes  the  thing  all  right," 
referring  to  the  assent  of  the  rebel  authorities.  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr. 
Johnson,  the  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Stanton,  and  the  Secretary 
of  State,  Mr.  Seward,  Judge  Chase,  and  General  Grant  were  to  be 
the  victims.  Mr.  Thompson  said  this  would  leave  the  govern 
ment  entirely  without  a  head  ;  that  there  was  no  provision  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  by  which  they  could  elect 
another  President  if  these  men  were  removed.  The  long  waited 
for  authority  to  use  funds  which  the  rebel  government  had  placed 
to  the  credit  of  Mr.  Thompson  having  been  now  secured  in  the 
despatch  from  Mr.  Benjamin,  and  his  chief,  Jefferson  Davis,  no 
time  was  lost  in  putting  the  ball  in  motion.  Mr.  Thompson  had 
over  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  his  credit  in  the  Ontario 
Bank  of  Montreal,  and  within  two  days  after  receiving  these  let 
ters,  he  drew  on  his  deposit  for  over  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  Conover  saw  Surratt  in  Montreal  from  the  6th  or  /th 
to  the  Qth  of  April,  and  having  been  admitted  to  their  confidence 
by  Thompson,  on  his  receiving  the  despatches,  was  accepted  by 
Surratt  as  being  one  of  themselves,  and  so  he  was  under  no  restraint 
in  conversing  with  Conover.  From  the  whole  of  his  conversation 
Conover  inferred  that  he  was  to  take  his  part,  whatever  that  might 


160  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

be,  in  the  conspiracy.  We  have  already  learned  from  Merritt's 
testimony,  that  after  Surratt's  return  to  Canada  on  the  6th  of 
April  there  was  an  immediate  bustle  amongst  those  in  Canada 
who  were  to  go  to  Washington  to  take  part  in  the  plot,  and  that 
they  began  to  leave  on  the  8th.  The  sinews  of  war  having  been 
furnished,  there  was  great  eagerness,  expressed  and  apparent,  to 
be  off  for  the  execution  of  the  plot,  and  great  boasting  on  the 
part  of  those  who  went  as  to  what  they  were  going  to  do.  Hav 
ing  set  their  hired  assassins  in  motion,  Thompson  and  his  gang 
stood  waiting  in  a  great  state  of  expectancy  for  the  result.  Con- 
over  testified  that  on  the  day  before,  or  the  very  day  of  the  assas 
sination,  he  had  a  conversation  with  William  C.  Cleary  about  the 
rejoicing  in  the  States  over  the  surrender  of  Lee  and  the  capture  of 
Richmond.  Cleary  remarked  that  they  "  would  put  the  laugh  on 
the  other  side  of  their  mouths  in  a  day  or  two."  "The  conspiracy 
was  at  that  time  talked  of  amongst  them  about  as  freely  as  one 
would  speak  of  the  weather." 

Jefferson  Davis  received  his  first  intelligence  of  the  assassination 
at  Charlotte,  N.C.,  on  the  iQth  of  April,  in  a  telegram  from  Gen 
eral  Breckinridge,  as  follows :  — 

"GREENSBORO',  April  19,  1865. 
itflis  Excellency  President  Davis  :  — 

"  President  Lincoln  was  assassinated  in  the  theatre  at  Washington  on  the  night  of 
the  nth  inst.  Seward's  house  was  entered  on  the  same  night  and  he  was  repeatedly 
stabbed,  and  is  probably  mortally  wounded. 

[Signed]  "  JOHN  C.  BRECKINRIDGE." 

Davis  received  this  telegram  whilst  haranguing  in  his  grand 
iloquent  style  the  crowd  that  had  gathered  about  him,  trying  to 
convince  them  that  they  were  not  whipped,  and  would  yet  suc 
ceed.  At  the  conclusion  of  his  speech,  he  read  the  telegram  to 
his  auditors ;  and  after  the  manifestations  of  delight  at  the  news 
had  subsided,  he  made  this  comment:  "Well,  if  it  were  done,  it 
were  better  it  were  well  done." 

On  the  following  day,  when  dining  at  the  house  of  the  witness, 
Mr.  Lewis  F.  Bates,  with  General  Breckinridge,  who  had  come  to 
pay  him  a  visit,  upon  General  Breckinridge  saying  in  regard  to 
the  assassination  that  he  regretted  it  very  much  —  that  it  was  very 


EVIDENCE   PRESENTED   BY    THE    GOVERNMENT.  i6l 

unfortunate  for  the  people  of  the  South  at  that  time  —  Davis  replied, 
"Well,  General,  I  don't  know;  if  it  were  done  at  all,  it  were  better 
that  it  were  well  done ;  and  if  the  same  had  been  done  to  Andy 
Johnson,  the  beast,  and  Secretary  Stanton  the  job  would  then  be 
complete."  Mark  the  disappointment  of  the  man,  and  his  bitter 
dissatisfaction  with  the  result  of  the  plot  to  which  he  had  so 
recently  given  his  sanction  !  The  telegram  informed  him  of  the 
death  of  President  Lincoln  at  the  hands  of  an  assassin,  and  gave 
him  strong  grounds  to  conclude  that  Secretary  Seward  had  been 
put  out  of  the  way  in  the  same  way,  and  was  dead  ;  but  this  does 
not  satisfy  him.  The  work  had  not  been  well  done  because  "Andy 
Johnson  "  still  lived,  and  so  they  had  failed  in  their  purpose  to 
subvert  the  government.  Hear  him  growl,  "  It  were  better  it  were 
well  done ;  and  if  the  same  had  only  been  done  to  Andy  Johnson, 
the  beast,  and  to  Secretary  Stanton,  the  job  would  then  have  been 
complete,"  and  we  might  have  taken  fresh  courage.  His  co-con 
spirators  in  Canada,  when  informed  of  the  result,  gnashed  their 
teeth  in  rage  and  disappointment.  They  expressed  their  regret 
that  "  the  boys  had  not  been  allowed  to  act  when  they  wanted  to," 
and  swore  "  they  were  not  done  with  them  yet."  At  first  their 
attitude  was  that  of  defiance,  and  their  expressions  of  regret  at 
their  failure  to  completely  carry  out  their  plot  were  mingled  with 
threatenings  as  to  what  they  would  yet  do.  They  boasted  while 
the  trial  was  going  on  that  they  had  their  friends  at  court,  and 
were  kept  posted  from  day  to  day  as  to  what  was  going  on.  The 
promptness  of  the  government  in  bringing  its  prisoners  before  a 
military  commission  for  trial,  making  it  obvious  that  there  was 
to  be  no  fooling  in  the  case,  together  with  their  continued 
disasters  in  the  field,  ending  in  the  speedy  collapse  of  the 
rebellion  and  the  capture  of  Jefferson  Davis,  brought  them  to 
their  senses,  and  to  a  realization  of  their  own  danger ;  and  so 
they  at  once  commenced  to  destroy  all  documentary  evidence  of 
their  guilt.  They  declared  in  the  presence  of  Montgomery,  and 
also  of  Merritt,  that  they  had  destroyed  all  their  papers,  lest  some 
Yankee  should  steal  them  and  they  should  be  brought  up  in  a 
possible  future  trial  as  evidence  against  them. 

Now,  let  us  consider  what  is  lacking  in  this  testimony  to  make 


1 62  ASSASsAv.rr/o.v  OF  LIXCOLX. 

the  evidence  of  Davis's  complicity  in  this  crime  complete.  Noth 
ing,  manifestly,  but  the  letters  referred  to  in  the  testimony ;  the 
first,  that  read  by  Sanders,  and  credited  by  him  to  Davis,  inciting 
his  friends  in  Canada  to  the  commission  of  this  crime,  and  point 
ing  out  specifically  whom  he  would  have  them  put  out  of  the  way ; 
and  the  second,  carried  by  Surratt  to  Thompson,  on  which  Thomp 
son  laid  his  hand  and  exclaimed,  "This  makes  the  thing  all  right !  " 
But  the  absence  of  this  missing  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence  against 
him  is  accounted  for,  and  that  in  a  way  that  makes  the  chain 
even  stronger,  if  possible,  than  if  we  were  able  to  produce  these 
documents. 

His  co-conspirators  in  Canada  declare  to  two  witnesses  and  in 
the  presence  of  a  third,  George  B.  Hutchinson,  that  they  have 
destroyed  all  their  papers  ;  giving  as  the  reason  for  so  doing,  the 
fear  that  some  "  Yankee  son  of  a  b — h  "  might  steal  them,  and 
they  should  be  used  as  evidence  against  them. 

They  burn  their  papers  and  then  silently  steal  away.  Exeunt 
omnes. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE    GOVERNMENT   WITNESSES    AGAINST    DAVIS    AND    HIS 
ASSOCIATES    IN   THIS    CRIME. 

INASMUCH  as  the  testimony  given  above  so  completely  sustains 
the  charge  and  specifications  made  by  the  government  against 
Jefferson  Davis,  George  N.  Sanders,  Jacob  Thompson,  Beverly 
Tucker,  Clement  C.  Clay,  William  C.  Cleary,  et  al,  that  had  they 
been  before  the  Commission  their  successful  defense  could  only 
have  been  made  by  impeachment  of  the  witnesses  against  them,  I 
will  now  show  that  this  could  not  have  been  done.  The  principal 
witnesses  in  this  department  of  the  trial,  in  which  the  Commission 
was  only  used  as  a  medium  through  which  to  present  to  the 
world,  before  whom  the  charges  were  made,  the  evidence  on 
which  they  rested,  were  Richard  Montgomery,  Sanford  Conover, 
and  Dr.  James  B.  Merritt.  Richard  Montgomery  was  originally 
a  citizen  of  the  city  of  New  York,  and  was  in  the  employ  of  the 
government  in  its  department  of  secret  service.  He  was  sent  to 
Canada,  in  the  summer  of  1864,  to  acquire  information  of  the 
plans  and  purposes  of  the  rebels  assembled  in  Canada. 

He  acted  faithfully  toward  the  government  in  this  service,  im 
parting  to  it  all  the  information  he  obtained  from  time  to  time 
that  was  of  any  importance. 

He  was  a  man  of  intelligence,  good  character,  and  was  trusted 
by  the  government.  There  was  no  attempt  made  before  the  Com 
mission  to  impeach  his  character  for  credibility.  Of  course  the 
purpose  of  his  mission  to  Canada  required  him  to  gain  the  confi 
dence  of  the  men  whose  movements  he  had  been  sent  to  watch, 
and  a  knowledge  of  whose  plans  and  purposes  it  was  his  duty  to 
obtain.  To  do  this  it  was  necessary  not  only  that  he  should  con 
ceal  from  them  his  real  character  and  mission,  but  that  he  should 

163 


164  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

be  known  to  them  as  a  man  holding  the  same  opinions  and  actu 
ated  by  the  same  purposes  as  themselves.  To  gain  fully  their  con 
fidence  was  necessary  to  the  success  and  usefulness  of  his  mission. 
This  he  could  only  do  by  making  them  believe  that  His  sentiments 
and  purposes  were  in  unison  with  their  own.  Of  course  this 
involved  duplicity  and  falsehood,  yet  it  is  held  to  be  allowable  in 
war,  because  it  may  be  made  to  contribute  to  success.  A  great  deal 
of  the  strategy  in  war  consists  in  deceiving  the  enemy ;  and  if  it  is 
ever  allowable  by  falsehood  to  deceive,  it  was  certainly  allowable  by 
falsehood  to  deceive  those  who  were  playing  false  to  their  govern 
ment  to  accomplish  its  overthrow.  They  were  secretly  concocting 
their  schemes  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  purpose ;  and  to  be 
forearmed  against  them,  it  was  necessary  to  be  forewarned  of 
them.  This  could  only  be  done  by  this  kind  of  deception,  which 
is  the  same  in  its  nature  as  that  practiced  by  every  spy.  But 
spies  are  used  by  both  parties  to  the  conflict  in  every  war.  War 
is  in  its  very  nature  atrociously  wicked ;  and  so,  its  ethics  cannot 
be  made  to  conform  to  the  accepted  morality  that  ought  to  govern 
peaceful  life.  But  whilst  war  is  wicked  and  ought  never  to  be 
provoked,  it  is  yet  justifiable  when  it  becomes  necessary  to  the 
preservation  of  the  life  of  a  nation.  Upon  the  aggressor  in  this 
case  the  responsibility  beloags.  On  him  the  guilt  falls.  A 
defensive  war  is  always  justifiable;  and  so,  according  to  the  code 
of  military  ethics,  everything  that  is  necessary  to  its  successful 
prosecution  is  also  justifiable.  This  secret  service  department  has 
always  been  considered  one  of  these  indispensable  necessities ; 
and  it  has  never  been  regarded  as  a  just  ground  of  impeachment 
of  a  man's  character  for  truthfulness  and  honesty  that  he  has  been 
found  engaged  in  this  kind  of  service.  Indeed  the  very  nature 
of  the  duties  of  this  service  call  for  a  man  of  sterling  integrity,  in 
order  that  the  information  obtained  through  him  may  have  the 
quality  of  reliability. 

That  Richard  Montgomery  succeeded  fully  in  gaining  the  con 
fidence  of  these  Canada  rebels  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  they  made 
him  a  medium  of  communication  between  themselves  and  the 
Richmond  government.  His  character  is  further  shown  by  the 
fact  that  when  they  paid  him  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 


THE    GOVERNMENT    WITNESSES  AGAINST  DAVIS.          165 

for  carrying  despatches  to  Richmond  he  credited  the  government 
with  it  on  his  expense  account.  And  that  he  acted  faithfully  in 
the  discharge  of  his  duties  to  his  government  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  he  always  submitted  the  despatches  sent  by  him  to  the  author 
ities  at  Washington,  where  copies  of  them  were  kept  when  they 
were  allowed  to  pass.  This  is  sufficient  evidence  that  he  was  in  a 
position  to  learn  the  facts  to  which  he  testified,  and  also  presump 
tive  evidence  of  the  credibility  of  his  statements.  The  force  of  his 
evidence  could  only  have  been  broken  by  undoubted  proof  that 
he  was  a  man  that  could  not  be  believed  under  oath. 

Dr.  James  B.  Merritt  was  a  native  of  Canada  by  accident,  having 
been  born  there  whilst  his  parents  were  there  on  a  visit,  but  had  been 
all  his  life  a  citizen  of  the  State  of  New  York.  He  went  to  Canada 
in  the  spring  of  1864,  and  practiced  his  profession  at  Windsor  and 
Dumfries.  He  passed  amongst  the  rebels  in  Canada  as  a  sym 
pathizer  of  the  Southern  cause,  and  was  accepted  by  them  as  a 
good  rebel,  and  was  fully  taken  into  their  confidences.  They 
talked  freely  to  him,  and  revealed  their  plans  to  him  without  hesi 
tation  or  reserve.  His  testimony,  as  we  have  seen,  is  very  specific, 
and  relates  to  facts  of  the  greatest  importance.  He  testified  that 
his  sympathies  had  always  been  with  his  government,  and  that  his 
object  in  dissembling  in  his  intercourse  with  the  Canada  rebels 
was  to  be  able  to  impart  information  to  the  United  States  govern 
ment  when  he  deemed  it  of  sufficient  importance  to  justify  or 
require  its  communication. 

That  he  did  thus  voluntarily,  and  without  compensation,  furnish 
valuable  information  to  the  government  was  shown.  He  had  thus 
communicated  to  the  Provost  Marshal  at  Detroit  the  plot  to  burn 
New  York  City.  It  was  also  shown  that  he  had  made  an  effort  to 
communicate  the  knowledge  he  had  obtained,  after  the  meeting 
of  the  6th  of  April,  at  which  John  H.  Surratt  delivered  to  Thomp 
son  the  despatches  he  had  brought  from  Richmond,  as  to  the 
parties  starting  from  Canada  to  Washington  to  assist  in  the  work 
of  assassination.  There  was  sufficient  evidence  of  his  loyalty  and 
usefulness  to  the  government,  and  his  credibility  was  not  assailed. 
He  was  a  self-constituted  secret  service  man,  working  without 
compensation,  and  so  entitled  to  all  the  more  honor. 


1 66  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Sanford  Conover,  known,  to  the  conspirators  as  James  Watson 
Wallace,  was  born  and  educated  in  New  York  City.  He  had  been 
living  in  the  South  for  five  or  six  years  when  the  rebellion  broke 
out,  and  was  conscripted  into  the  rebel  service  from  near  Colum 
bia,  S.C.,  early  in  1863,  but  was  detailed  and  served  as  a  clerk  in 
the  rebel  war  department  at  Richmond  for  six  months.  His  sym 
pathies  being  on  the  side  of  the  Union,  he  embraced  the  first  good 
opportunity  he  could  find  to  desert,  and  ran  the  blockade  from 
Richmond,  walking  most  of  the  way.  He  rode  on  the  cars  as  far 
as  Hanover  Junction,  and  then  walked  up  through  Snickersville 
to  Charlestown,  and  from  there  to  Harper's  Ferry,  and  so  on  to 
Washington,  reaching  there  in  the  latter  part  of  December,  1863. 
Whilst  in  Washington  he  became  a  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  and  went  to  Canada  in  that  capacity  in  October, 
1864.  He  testified  that  he  received  compensation  from  the  Trib 
une  for  his  services  as  correspondent,  but  had  never  received 
anything  from  either  the  United  States  or  the  Confederate  govern 
ment,  and  that  his  sympathies  had  always  been  with  the  Union 
cause.  The  fact  that  he  was  not  willing  to  remain  in  the  safe  and 
easy  position  of  a  clerk  in  the  rebel  war  department,  but  chose 
rather  to  take  the  hazard  of  deserting,  fully  confirms  his  sworn 
statements  as  to  his  political  sympathies.  He  also  was  a  self-con 
stituted  secret  service  agent  of  the  United  States,  serving  without 
pay.  He  seems  to  have  been  peculiarly  successful  in  working 
himself  into  the  confidence  of  Davis's  agents  in  Canada,  who 
admitted  him  to  their  conferences  and  revealed  fully  and  freely  to 
him  all  of  their  plans.  His  testimony  is  specific  and  conclusive 
as  to  their  guilt.  After  he  had  testified  before  the  Commission 
he  was  sent  back  to  Canada  by  the  Judge  Advocate  General  to 
get  the  official  report  of  the  St.  Albans  trial,  to  be  used  in  evi 
dence.  Arriving  in  Montreal,  he  was  received  in  the  most  friendly 
manner  by  the  conspirators,  who  had  not  the  least  idea  that  he 
had  been  a  witness  before  the  Commission,  and  so  they  went  on 
with  their  confidences  as  to  what  they  would  yet  do,  declaring 
they  were  not  done  yet,  etc.  But  after  he  had  been  there  a  day 
or  two,  his  testimony,  which  had  hitherto  been  withheld,  was 
published  in  the  New  York  papers,  and  this  revealed  to  them  the 
fact  that  Sanford  Conover  was  their  James  Watson  Wallace. 


THE    GOVERNMENT    WITNESSES  AGAINST  DAVIS. 

Of  course  they  were  like  demons  in  their  rage  when  they  saw 
that  he  had  revealed  all  of  their  doings.  He  was  at  once  virtually 
made  a  prisoner  by  twelve  or  fifteen  men  armed  to  the  teeth,  who 
confronted  him  with  his  testimony  before  the  Commission.  Con- 
over  found  himself  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  placed  in  a  situa 
tion  of  great  difficulty  and  danger,  escape  being  impossible,  and 
so  he  denied  that  he  had  been  before  the  Commission  as  a  witness. 

They  then  required  him  to  make  a  denial  under  oath,  and  set  a 
lawyer  at  work  to  put  this  disavowal  in  the  most  imposing  shape, 
whilst  they  sent  for  an  officer  to  administer  the  oath,  informing 
Conover  that  he  must  appear  to  the  officer  not  only  to  be  willing, 
but  anxious  to  swear  to  this  disclaimer,  in  which  they  make  him 
say  he  had  been  personated  before  the  Commission  by  some  infa 
mous  scoundrel,  \vho  had  sworn  to  a  tissue  of  falsehoods,  and  telling 
him  that  if  he  manifested  the  least  hesitation  or  unwillingness  his  life 
would  pay  the  forfeit.  He  at  first,  in  order  to  get  away  from  them, 
proposed  that  he  would  go  to  the  hotel  and  prepare  the  paper  that 
they  required.  O'Donnell  told  him  that  would  not  do,  and  that  he 
would  shoot  him  down  like  a  dog  if  he  did  not  do  as  they  required. 
Conover  still  declining,  Sanders  said  to  him,  "  Wallace,  you  see  what 
kind  of  hands  you  are  in ;  I  hope  you  will  not  be  so  foolish  as  to 
refuse."  Seeing  there  was  no  other  way  of  escape  from  them,  Con- 
over  finally  did  what  they  required.  They  then  had  a  lawyer,  by 
the  name  of  Kerr,  to  write  out  and  sign  and  be  qualified  to  a  very 
formal  affidavit  covering  the  whole  case,  to  the  effect  that  he  was 
present  and  saw  Conover  swear  to  the  disavowal  referred  to,  and 
that  he  did  it  willingly,  and  appeared  anxious  to  do  so,  in  justice 
to  his  own  character.  These  affidavits  they  at  once  published  to 
the  world  through  the  Canada  papers,  and  with  them  also  pub 
lished  the  following  advertisement,  as  if  from  Conover :  — 

Five  hundred  dollars  reward  will  be  given  for  the  arrest,  so  that  I  can  bring  to 
punishment,  in  Canada,  of  the  infamous  and  perjured  scoundrel  who  recently  personated 
me  under  the  name  of  Sanford  Conover,  and  deposed  to  a  tissue  of  falsehoods  before 
the  Military  Commission  at  Washington. 

JAMES  W.  WALLACE. 

They  also  wrote  and  published  over  his  name,  as  if  from  him, 
the  following  letter  :  — 


1 68  ASSASSL\'AT/OAT   OF  LINCOLN. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Evening  Telegraph  :  — 

Sir:  — Please  publish  my  affidavit  now  handed  you,  and  the  subjoined  advertisement. 
I  will  obtain  and  furnish  others'for  publication  hereafter.  I  will  add  that  if  President 
Johnson  will  send  me  a  safe  conduct  to  go  to  Washington  and  return  here,  I  will  pro 
ceed  thither  and  go  before  the  military  court  and  make  profert  of  myself,  in  order  that 
they  may  see  whether  or  not  I  am  the  Sanford  Conover  who  swore  as  stated. 

MONTREAL,  June  8th,  1865.  JAMES  W.  WALLACE. 

Conover  not  returning  to  Washington  at  the  time  he  was  ex 
pected,  it  was  realized  that  he  had  been  put  in  jeopardy  by  the 
premature  publication  of  his  testimony,  and  so  it  became  the  duty 
of  the  United  States  to  follow  him  with  its  protecting  arm,  and  he 
was  rescued  through  the  intervention  of  General  Dix. 

Being  thus  rescued,  he  came  again  before  the  Commission  and 
testified  circumstantially  to  all  of  the  above  facts,  and  thus  exposed 
the;  effort  of  the  conspirators  to  break  the  force  of  his  testimony  by 
an,  affidavit  extorted  by  violence  whilst  he  was  virtually  a  prisoner, 
and  supported  by  that  of  Kerr,  who  may  not  have  known  that  he 
testified  to  a  falsehood,  as  the  coercion  was  used  before  he  was 
sent  for,  and  still  held  over  the  head  of  Conover  by  the  threat  that 
if  he  manifested  the  least  hesitation  or  unwillingness  before  Kerr 
his  life  would  pay  the  forfeit.  The  testimony  of  Conover  as  to 
the  circumstances  under  which  this  affidavit  was  extorted  from 
him,  was  substantiated,  as  also  his  character,  by  Nathan  Auser, 
who  testified  as  follows :  — 

"I  reside  in  New  York,  and  am  acquainted  with  Sanford  Con- 
over,  who  has  just  testified.  I  have  known  him  eight  or  ten  years ; 
his  character  for  integrity  and  usefulness  is  good  as  far  as  I  know. 
I  recently  accompanied  him  to  Montreal,  in  Canada,  and  was 
present  at  an  interview  which  he  had  with  Beverly  Tucker,  George 
N.  Sanders,  and  that  clique  of  rebel  conspirators. 

"  After  we  went  into  O'Donnell's  room,  at  Montreal,  Mr. 
Cameron  gave  each  of  us  a  paper  containing  the  evidence  Mr. 
Conover  gave  here  in  Washington  before  the  Commission,  when 
he  denied  it.  They  told  him  he  must  sign  a  written  paper  to  that 
effect,  and  if  he  did  not  he  would  not  leave  the  room  alive. 
O'Donnell  said  that  he  would  shoot  him  like  a  dog  if  he  did  not. 
Mr.  Conover  was  first  going  to  his  hotel  to  write  the  paper ;  at 


THE    GOVERNMENT    WITNESSES  AGAINST  DAVIS.          169 

first  they  agreeed  to  this,  but  when  they  got  as  far  as  St.  Lawrence 
Hall  they  made  up  their  minds  they  would  not  let  him  do  this 
himself,  and  when  they  went  upstairs  at  St.  Lawrence  Hall  they 
would  not  let  me  go  up.  There  were,  I  think,  twelve  or  fifteen  of 
the  conspirators  together ;  among  them  Sanders,  Tucker,  O'Don- 
nell,  General  Carroll,  Fallen,  and  Cameron.  They  all  accompanied 
him  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  his  escape  and  obliging  him  to 
do  what  they  required." 

Thus  was  their  attempt  to  break  the  force  of  Conover's  testi 
mony  by  fraud  and  violence  exposed,  and  they  were  left  in  a 
more  pitiable  condition  than  if  they  had  not  made  the  effort. 
Conover  stands  in  a  better  light  as  a  witness  than  he  did  before 
it  was  made. 

The  question  will  naturally  suggest  itself  to  the  intelligent  reader, 
why,  if  these  men  knew  of  the  purpose  and  preparations  referred 
to  as  the  result  of  the  reception  of  the  despatches  from  Richmond 
at  the  hands  of  Surratt,  did  they  not  inform  the  authorities  at 
Washington?  Accepting  the  fact  that  they  had  all  the  knowledge 
on  this  subject  which  is  implied  in  their  testimony,  and  that  they 
were  loyal  to  the  government,  as  they  declared  themselves  to  be 
under  oath,  this  would  seem  plainly  to  have  been  their  duty. 

The  counsel  for  the  defense  were  not  slow  to  perceive  this  fact, 
and  sought  to  weaken  their  standing  before  the  Commission  by  ask 
ing  them  this  very  question.  The  answers  elicited,  however,  only 
served  to  strengthen  their  testimony.  In  answer,  Dr.  Merritt  stated 
as  follows :  "  On  Saturday  the  8th  of  April  I  was  at  Gait,  five 
miles  from  which  place  Harper's  mother  lives,  and  I  ascertained 
there  that  Harper  and  Caldwell  had  stopped  there  and  had  started 
for  the  States.  When  I  found  they  had  left  for  Washington,  pro 
bably  for  the  purpose  of  assassinating  the  President,  I  went  to 
Squire  Davidson,  a  justice  of  the  peace,  to  give  information  and 
have  them  stopped. 

"  He  said  that  the  thing  was  too  ridiculously  or  supremely 
absurd  to  take  any  notice  of ;  it  would  only  appear  foolish  to  give 
such  information  and  cause  arrests  to  be  made  on  such  grounds ; 
it  was  so  inconsistent  that  no  person  \vould  believe  it ;  and  he 
declined  to  issue  any  process.  I  then  called  upon  the  judge  of 


I/O  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

the  court  of   assizes,   made  my  statement  to  him,  and  he  said   I 
should  have  to  go  to  the  grand  jury." 

In  his  answer  it  is  made  to  appear  that  Dr.  Merritt  made  an  earn 
est  effort  to  have  this  information  imparted  to  the  government,  and 
did  all  that  we  can  reasonably  think  that  he  ought  to  have  done. 

His  testimony  is  corroborated  by  that  of  Squire  Davidson,  who 
made  a  statement  to  the  government  after  the  assassination,  of  this 
interview  that  Merritt  had  sought  with  him  and  of  the  purpose  of 
it ;  and  it  was  upon  this  information  that  Dr.  Merritt  was  brought 
before  the  Commission  as  a  witness. 

In  answer  to  this  question,  Conover  testified  as  follows:  "I 
communicated  to  the  New  York  Tribune  the  contemplated  assas 
sination  of  the  President,  and  the  intended  raid  on  Ogdensburg. 
The  assassination  plot  they  declined  to  publish  because  they  had 
been  accused  of  publishing  sensational  stories.  The  assassination 
plot  I  communicated  in  March  last,  and  also  in  February,  I  think» 
—  certainly  before  the  4th  of  March.  My  reasons  for  communi 
cating  the  intended  assassinations  to  the  Tribune,  and  not  directly 
to  the  government,  was  that  I  supposed  that  the  relations  between 
the  editor  and  proprietor  of  the  Tribune  and  the  government  were 
such  that  they  would  lose  no  time  in  giving  information  on  the 
subject.  In  regard  to  the  conspiracy,  as  well  as  to  some  other 
secrets  of  the  rebels  in  Canada,  I  requested  Mr.  Gay,  of  the  Trib 
une,  to  give  information  to  the  government,  and  I  believe  he  has 
formerly  done  so." 

Here  again  we  find  that  the  witness  Conover  fulfilled  his  duty,, 
which,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  his  testimony  places  him 
in  regard  to  the  matter,  any  reasonable  man  could  have  required 
of  him.  And  his  position  was  also  strengthened  before  the  Com 
mission  by  the  answer  elicited. 

Lewis  F.  Bates,  who  testified  as  to  Jefferson  Davis's  remarks  to 
his  auditors  on  reading  to  them  the  telegram  from  General  Breckin- 
ridge,  informing  him  of  the  assassination  of  the  President,  etc.,  and 
of  his  remarks  to  General  Breckinridge  on  the  following  day  at 
the  dinner  table,  was  a  resident  of  Charlotte,  N.C.,  where  he  had 
been  for  a  little  over  four  years.  He  was  superintendent  of  the 
Southern  Express  Company  for  the  State  of  North  Carolina.  He 


THE    GOVERNMENT    WITNESSES  AGAINST  DAVIS.          171 

was  a  native  of  Massachusetts.  The  responsible  position  in  which 
we  find  him  vouches  for  his  standing  as  a  reliable  man  amongst 
those  who  knew  him.  His  character  was  further  established 
before  the  Commission  by  the  testimony  of  a  witness  who  was 
acquainted  with  him,  James  E.  Russell,  as  follows:  "I  reside 
in  Springfield,  Mass.  I  have  known  Lewis  F.  Bates  for  about 
twenty-five  years.  For  the  last  five  years  I  have  not  known  any 
thing  of  his  whereabouts,  until  I  learned  from  him  that  he  had 
been  living  in  Charlotte,  N.C.  He  was  in  business  as  a  baggage- 
master  on  the  Western  Railroad,  Massachusetts,  while  I  was  con 
ductor,  and  I  never  heard  anything  against  his  reputation  for 
truth." 

Burton  N.  Harrison,  private  secretary  to  Jefferson  Davis,  in  an 
article  entitled,  "  An  Extract  from  a  Narrative,  written  not  for 
publication,  but  for  the  entertainment  of  my  children  only,"  pub 
lished  in  the  Century  Magazine,  New  Series,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  136  and 
137,  says:  "  In  pursuance  of  the  scheme  of  Stanton  and  Holt  to 
fasten  upon  Mr.  Davis  charges  of  a  guilty  foreknowledge  of,  and 
participation  in,  the  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Bates  was  afterwards 
carried  to  Washington  and  made  to  testify  (before  the  military 
tribunal,  I  believe,  where  the  murderers  were  on -trial)  to  some 
thing  about  that  speech  [referring  to  Davis's  speech  at  Charlotte, 
N.C.].  As  I  recollect  the  reports  of  the  testimony  published  at 
the  time,  they  made  the  witness  say  that  Mr.  Davis  had  approved 
of  the  assassination,  either  explicitly  or  by  necessary  implication ; 
and  that  he  added,  '  If  it  was  to  be  done  it  is  well  it  was  done 
quickly,'  or  words  to  that  effect.  If  any  such  testimony  was 
given  it  is  false  and  without  foundation ;  no  comment  upon  or 
reference  to  the  assassination  was  made  in  that  speech.  I  have 
been  teld  the  witness  has  always  stoutly  insisted  he  never  testified 
to  anything  of  the  kind,  but  that  what  he  said  was  altogether 
perverted  in  the  publication  made  by  the  rascals  in  Washington. 
Col.  William  Preston  Johnston  tells  me  he  has  seen  another  version 
of  the  story,  and  thinks  Bates  is  understood  to  have  fathered  it  in  a 
publication  made  in  some  newspaper  after  his  visit  to  Washington  ; 
it  represents  Bates  as  saying  that  the  words  above  mentioned  as 
imputed  to  Mr.  Davis  were  used  by  him,  not,  indeed,  in  the  speech 


ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

I  have  described,  but  in  a  conversation  with  Johnston  at  Bates's 
house.  Johnston  assures  me  that,  in  that  shape,  too,  the  story  is 
false ;  that  Mr.  Davis  never  used  such  words  in  his  presence,  or 
any  words  at  all  like  them.  He  adds  that  Mr.  Davis  remarked 
to  him  at  Bates's  house,  with  reference  to  the  assassination,  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  been  much  more  useful  to  the  Southern 
States  than  Andrew  Johnson,  the  successor,  was  likely  to  be ;  and 
I  myself  heard  Mr.  Davis  express  the  same  opinion  at  that  period." 
On  p.  145,  same  article,  he  says:  "  It  was  at  that  cavalry  camp  we 
first  heard  of  the  proclamation  offering  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  the  capture  of  Mr.  Davis  upon  the  charge,  invented 
by  Stanton  and  Holt,  of  participation  in  the  plot  to  murder  Mr. 
Lincoln.  Colonel  Pritchard  had  himself  just  received  it,  and  con 
siderately  handed  a  printed  copy  of  the  proclamation  to  Mr. 
Davis,  who  read  it  with  a  composure  unruffled  by  any  feeling 
other  than  scorn.  The  money  was  several  years  afterwards  paid 
to  the  captors.  Stanton  and  Holt,  lawyers  both,  very  well  knew 
that  Mr.  Davis  could  never  be  convicted  upon  an  indictment  for 
treason,  but  were  determined  to  hang  him  anyhow,  and  were  in 
search  of  a  pretext  for  doing  so."  And  again  in  conclusion  he 
says,  "  To  have  been  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  and  not  to  have  been  brought  to  trial  upon  any 
of  the  charges  against  him,  is  sufficient  refutation  of  them  all.  It 
indicates  that  the  people  in  Washington  knew  the  accusations  could 
not  be  sustained."  Had  Mr.  Harrison  adhered  to  his  original  pur 
pose  of  simply  entertaining  his  children  with  this  article  it  would  have 
been  much  to  his  credit.  It  seems,  however,  that  upon  reading 
and  re-reading  it  he  came  to  regard  it  as  too  clever  a  production, 
and  of  too  much  public  importance,  to  be  restricted  to  so  narrow  a 
sphere,  and  so  he  publishes  this  lengthy  extract  from  it  in  the 
Century.  The  article,  as  it  appears  in  the  Century,  is  mostly 
devoted  to  an  account  of  the  flight  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  family 
from  Richmond,  and  their  progress  southward  until  captured. 

We  have  simply  extracted  from  this  article  that  part  which  from 
the  nature  of  the  subject  claims  our  attention,  as  it  relates  to  the 
testimony  of  Lewis  F.  Bates  before  the  Commission.  Let  us  first 
notice  Mr.  Harrison's  assumption  that  Secretary  Stanton  and  Gen- 


THE    GOVERNMENT    WITNESSES   AGAINST  DAVIS.          173 

eral  Holt  had  concocted  a  scheme  to  fasten  on  Jefferson  Davis  a 
guilty  complicity  in  the  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  This  charge  Mr. 
Harrison  makes  with  brazen  effrontery,  but  does  not  bring  a  scin 
tilla  of  evidence  to  sustain  it.  Here  are  two  high  officers  of  the 
government,  —  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  the  head  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  Military  Justice,  —  men  of  unsullied  personal  and  official 
reputation,  charged  with  concocting  a  scheme  to  take  the  life  of 
Jefferson  Davis  on  a  trumped-up  charge,  and  sustained  by  false 
testimony.  The  Secretary  of  War,  as  was  his  duty,  employed 
every  agency  in  his  power  to  ferret  out  the  conspirators,  and  in 
the  progress  of  his  investigations  turned  over  to  the  Judge  Advo 
cate  General  all  the  facts  that  came  to  his  knowledge,  together 
with  the  names  of  the  persons  by  whom  they  could  be  proven. 
These  persons  were  brought  before  the  Judge  Advocate  and  care 
fully  examined  as  to  what  they  knew,  and  so  became  witnesses 
before  the  Commission,  when  they  were  found  to  have  knowledge 
of  facts  bearing  on  the  great  crime  that  had  been  committed. 

That  any  witness  was  in  any  manner  coerced,  or  required  to 
render  testimony  that  had  been  prepared  for  him  by  these  officers 
as  charged,  will  only  be  believed  by  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the 
personal  and  official  character  of  these  noble,  patriotic,  men,  or 
those  who,  like  Mr.  Harrison,  are  willing  to  thus  calumniate  on 
their  own  responsibility.  That  Mr.  Bates  was  testifying  under  any 
manner  of  duress  will  not  be  believed  by  any  member  of  the  Com 
mission  who  is  yet  living,  and  who  can  recall  the  appearance  and 
manner  of  the  witness  in  giving  his  testimony.  He  was  evidently 
telling  just  what  he  had  seen  and  heard,  and  did  it  willingly.  The 
charge  of  Mr.  Harrison,  that  Bates  was  carried  to  Washington  and 
made  to  testify,  rests  simply  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Burton  N. 
Harrison,  whilom  private  secretary  to  Jefferson  Davis,  unsustained 
by  any  evidence. 

The  evidence  given  by  Bates  was  taken  down,  as  delivered,  by  a 
stenographer,  and  read  to  him  before  he  was  discharged,  and  its 
correctness  admitted  by  him,  as  witnessed  by  his  signature.  This 
testimony  was  published  in  the  newspapers,  and  also  in  the  official 
record  of  the  trial.  What  excuse,  then,  can  Mr.  Harrison  give  for 
quoting  it  as  he  recollected  it,  and  so  failing  to  give  anything  like 
a  correct  version  of  his  testimony? 


174  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

The  testimony  of  Bates  was  that  Mr.  Davis,  whilst  addressing 
the  people  from  the  steps  of  Bates's  house,  received  a  telegram 
from  General  Breckinridge  informing  him  of  the  assassination  of 
President  Lincoln,  and  that  an  attempt  had  been  made  on  the  life 
of  William  H.  Seward,  and  that  he  was  repeatedly  stabbed  and 
probably  mortally  wounded,  and  that  in  concluding  his  speech  he 
read  the  telegram  aloud,  and  made  this  remark,  "  If  it  were  to  be 
done  it  \vere  better  it  were  well  done."  The  witness  added,  "  I  am 
quite  sure  that  these  are  the  words  he  used."  And  again,  "  A 
day  or  two  afterward  Jefferson  Davis  and  John  C.  Breckinridge 
were  present  at  my  house,  when  the  assassination  of  the  President 
was  the  subject  of  conversation.  In  speaking  of  it,  John  C.  Breck 
inridge  remarked  to  Davis  that  he  regretted  it  very  much,  that  it 
was  very  unfortunate  for  the  people  of  the  South  at  that  time. 
Davis  replied,  'Well,  General,  I  don't  know;  if  it  were  to  be  done 
at  all,  it  were  better  that  it  were  well  done,  and  if  the  same  had 
been  done  to  Andy  Johnson,  the  beast,  and  to  Secretary  Stanton, 
the  job  would  then  be  complete.'  No  remark  was  made  at  all  as 
to  the  criminality  of  the  act,  and  from  the  expression  used  by 
John  C.  Breckinridge  I  drew  the  conclusion  that  he  simply 
regarded  it  as  unfortunate  for  the  people  of  the  South  at  that 
time."  Here  is  Bates's  testimony  as  it  stands  recorded,  and  was 
also  published  at  the  time.1  Why  did  not  Mr.  Harrison  address 
himself  to  this  testimony  instead  of  giving  his  version  of  it  from 
memory,  and  confounding  it  with  newspaper  reports  as  to  what 
Bates  claimed  to  have  been  his  testimony,  and  thus  finding  an 
opportunity  to  substitute  Col.  William  P.  Johnston  for  General 
Breckinridge,  thus  contradicting  it  through  Johnston?  General 
Breckinridge  was  the  only  man  who  could  have  contradicted 
Bates's  testimony.  If  he  ever  did  do  this  it  has  not  come  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  writer.  Bates's  testimony  cannot  be  set 
aside  in  the  manner  attempted  by  Mr.  Harrison. 

The  charge  made  by  the  government  on  that  trial  against  Jeffer 
son  Davis  of  inciting  and  encouraging  the  assassins,  implicating 

1  It  is  highly  improbable  that  the  witness  would  have  given  false  testimony  as  to 
this  conversation  between  Davis  and  General  Breckinridge  because  of  the  certainty  of 
Us  contradiction  by  the  latter. 


THE    GOVERNMENT    WITNESSES  AGAINST  DAVIS.          175 

him  thus  far  in  the  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  was  only  made  upon 
the  evidence  before  it,  and  which  we  have  already  presented  at 
length. 

It  was  not  a  trumped-up  charge  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying 
malice,  or  with  a  view  to  the  taking  of  the  life  of  Mr.  Davis  un 
justly  in  revenge,  but  a  charge  made  in  good  faith,  and  sustained 
by  evidence  that  has  never  been  overthrown. 

The  conclusion  of  Mr.  Harrison,  that  the  government  conceded 
that  its  charge  against  Mr.  Davis  was  unfounded  in  that  it  did  not 
prosecute  it  when  it  had  him  in  custody  as  a  prisoner,  is  a  non 
sequitor. 

The  rebellion  was  declared  to  be  at  an  end  shortly  after  the  trial 
of  the  assassins.  The  proclamation  of  martial  law  ceased  with  the 
proclamation  of  peace.  Civil  law  took  the  place  of  martial  law  with 
the  issuance  of  the  proclamation  that  the  rebellion  was  at  an  end. 
The  work  of  reconstruction  belonged  to  the  political  department 
of  the  government,  and  the  benign  policy  of  condoning  the  past, 
and  only  securing  guarantees  for  the  future  was  wisely  adopted  ; 
this  security  is  found  in  the  fourteenth  amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution,  and  illustrates  the  tempering  of  justice  with  mercy  as  had 
never  been  before  done  in  the  history  of  the  race.  It  can  never 
be  claimed  that  the  government  abandoned  its  charge  made 
against  any  of  these  parties  because  it  did  not  bring  them  to 
trial  when  it  had  it  in  its  power  to  do  so.  The  charges  as  made 
have  never  been  withdrawn.  They  stand  in  the  records  of  that 
trial,  and  the  evidence  on  which  the  charges  were  based  has  been 
presented  to  the  world  and  the  question  of  the  guilt  or  innocence 
of  the  parties  has  been  referred  to  the  decision  of  an  enlightened 
and  impartial  public  sentiment  and  to  the  judgment  of  the  world. 

But  we  will  now  consider  the  credibility  of  this  testimony  from 
another  standpoint.  Here  we  have  three  witnesses,  —  Conover, 
Montgomery,  and  Merritt,  —  strangers  to  each  other,  testifying  as 
to  the  facts  known  to  each  one  separately,  and  they  completely 
corroborate  each  other.  There  could  have  been  no  possible  col 
lusion,  and  yet  their  testimony  is  the  same.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the 
continued  story  of  one  man,  who  is  consistent  with  himself  at 
every  point.  The  purposes  of  the  conspirators  and  their  plans 


i;6  ASSASSINATION   OF  JJXCOLX. 

through  a  period  of  several  months  are  the  same,  whether  they 
come  to  us  through  Conover,  Montgomery,  or  Merritt.  "  Out  of 
the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh."  The  assassina 
tion  plot  was  that  which  engrossed  their  thoughts.  They  were 
continually  scheming  for  its  accomplishment ;  it  was  the  thing  dear 
to  their  hearts  and  was  the  constant  theme  of  their  tongues. 

The  witnesses  corroborate  each  other  in  showing  that  this  was 
the  case.  In  regard  to  the  fact  testified  to  by  both  Montgomery 
and  Merritt,  that  the  conspirators  stated  they  were  destroying  their 
papers,  we  have  the  additional  testimony  of  George  B.  Hutchinson, 
who  testified  as  follows:  "  On  the  2d  of  June,  and  on  the  morn 
ing  of  the  3d,  1865,  I  saw  Dr.  Merritt  in  conversation  with 
Beverly  Tucker,  at  St.  Lawrence  Hall,  in  Montreal.  I  heard 
Beverly  Tucker  say  in  reply  to  a  remark  of  Dr.  Merritt,  that  he 
had  burned  all  the  letters  for  fear  that  some  '  Yankee  son  of  a 
b — h  '  might  steal  them  out  of  his  room  and  use  them  in  testimony 
against  him.  They  were  at  the  time  speaking  about  this  trial,  and 
the  charges  against  them.  They  were  talking  to  Dr.  Merritt  as  to- 
one  to  whom  they  gave  their  confidence." 

Who,  in  the  light  of  all  the  facts  given  in  this  testimony,  which 
fulfills  all  the  conditions,  on  down  to  the  crucial  test  of  credibility 
—  that  of  the  concurrence  of  three  witnesses,  who  were  entire 
strangers  to  each  other,  in  the  statement  of  all  the  essential  facts  — 
can  doubt  that  all  these  men  implicated  in  the  charge  and  specifi 
cations  preferred  by  the  government  were  equally  guilty  with  John 
H.  Surratt  and  John  Wilkes  Booth  of  the  assassination  accomplished, 
and  that  attempted  ;  as,  also,  of  the  others  planned.  It  matters 
not  that  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons  they  were  never  called  to 
account  by  the  government,  when  it  had  it  in  its  power  to  do  so  ; 
they  yet  stand,  and  must  forever  stand,  condemned  by  an  intelli 
gent  and  candid  world.  If  their  guilt  is  not  proven  I  do  not  see 
how  it  would  be  possible  to  prove  anything. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

A    CRITICISM    OF   N  ICO  LAY   AND    HAY. 

NlCOLAY  and  Hay  in  their  "  Life  of  Lincoln "  (see  Century 
Magazine  for  January,  1890,  p.  439),  say:  "  The  surviving  con 
spirators,  with  the  exception  of  John  H.  Surratt,  were  tried  by  a 
military  commission  sitting  in  Washington  in  the  months  of  May 
and  June. 

"  The  charges  against  them  specified  that  they  were  '  incited  and 
encouraged  '  to  treason  and  murder  by  Jefferson  Davis  and  the 
Confederate  emissaries  in  Canada.  This  was  not  proven  on  the 
trial ;  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  case  showed  frequent  communi 
cation  between  Canada  and  Richmond  and  the  Booth  coterie  in 
Washington,  and  some  transactions  in  drafts  at  the  Montreal  Bank 
where  Jacob  Thompson  and  Booth  kept  their  accounts.  It  was 
shown  by  the  sworn  testimony  of  a  reputable  witness  that  Jefferson 
Davis  at  Greensboro',  on  hearing  of  the  assassination,  expressed  his 
gratification  at  the  news ;  but  this,  so  far  from  proving  any  direct 
complicity  in  the  crime,  would  rather  prove  the  opposite,  as  a 
conscious  murderer  usually  conceals  his  malice.  Against  all  the 
rest,  the  facts  we  have  briefly  stated  were  abundantly  proved,"  etc. 
In  a  foot-note  they  add:  "When  captured  by  General  Wilson  he 
(Jefferson  Davis)  affected  to  think  he  cleared  himself  of  suspicion 
in  this  regard  by  saying  that  Johnson  was  more  objectionable  to 
him  than  Lincoln  —  not  noticing  that  the  conspiracy  contem 
plated  the  murder  of  both."  From  this  there  would  seem  to  have 
been  some  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the  writer  on  the  question  of 
Davis's  innocence.  Again,  they  say:  "Davis,  in  speaking  to  Gen 
eral  Wilson  about  this  charge,  said  that  he  regarded  the  charge  of 
treason  as  likely  to  give  him  more  trouble  than  this."  Of  course 
he  relied  on  the  sagacity  of  his  co-conspirators  in  Canada  for  the 

177 


178  ASSASSIArA7'ION   OF  LINCOLN. 

destruction  of  all  documentary  evidence  against  him,  and  so  he  felt 
that  his*  guilt  could  not  be  proven.  The  writer  has  the  highest 
regard  for  these  authors,  and  a  very  high  appreciation  of  the  man 
ner  in  which  they  have  handled  their  great  subject.  The  history 
of  several  of  the  last  years  of  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is 
inseparably  linked  with  the  history  of  his  country,  and  that  the 
most  momentous  period  of  its  history.  To  do  justice  to  the  sub 
ject  of  their  memoir  required  a  vast  amount  of  the  most  painstak 
ing  research,  and  a  general  overhauling  of  the  political  history  of 
the  country  over  a  period  of  a  dozen  or  more  years. 

This  was  a  work  of  great  labor,  involving  a  careful  examination 
of  a  multitude  of  documents  and  records.  They  had  that  familiar, 
personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  growing  out  of  their  offi 
cial  relations  to  him,  that  enabled  them  to  form  a  correct  estimate 
of  his  intellectual  and  moral  character,  and  of  the  innermost  feel 
ings  and  governing  motives  of  his  life.  They  have  done  their 
work  faithfully  and  well,  and  have  presented  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his 
true  character,  and  made  manifest  his  wonderful  astuteness,  his 
wisdom,  forbearance,  charity,  gentleness,  and  toleration  toward  his 
fellowmen,  as  well  as  his  firmness  and  fidelity  to  the  right,  to  the 
gaze  of  an  admiring  world.  It  is  with  feelings  of  regret  that  faith 
fulness  to  my  purpose  of  giving  a  true  history  of  the  great  con 
spiracy  which  culminated  in  his  death  requires  me  to  take  issue 
with  them  in  their  treatment  of  this  case.  It  will  be  evident  to  all 
my  readers  who  have  read  and  carefully  considered  the  evidence 
presented  by  the  government  to  sustain  its  charge  against  Jeffer 
son  Davis  and  his  confederates  in  Canada,  that  authors  who  were 
familiar  with  it  could  never  have  come  to  the  conclusion  so  confi 
dently  expressed  by  these  authors  when  they  say,  "  This  was  not 
proved  on  the  trial."  The  abstract  of  the  evidence  which  they 
then  proceed  to  give,  shows  an  equal  degree  of  unfamiliarity  with 
it.  It  consists  merely  in  a  confused  jumbling  of  a  few  compara 
tively  unimportant  facts,  leaving  unnoticed  and  untouched  the 
great  mass  of  relevant  and  conclusive  testimony  that  I  have  pre 
sented.  The  account  which  they  give  of  the  manner  in  which 
Davis  received  the  news  of  the  assassination  does  not  consist  at  all 
with  the  testimony.  They  say :  "It  was  shown  by  the  sworn  testi- 


A    CRITICISM   OF  NICOLA  Y  AND   HA  Y. 


179 


mony  of  a  reputable  witness  that  Jefferson  Davis  at  Greensboro', 
on  hearing  of  the  assassination,  expressed  his  gratification  at  the 
news ;  but  this,  so  far  from  proving  any  direct  complicity  in  the 
crime,  would  rather  prove  the  opposite,  as  a  conscious  murderer 
usually  conceals  his  malice." 

Jefferson  Davis  received  the  news  of  the  assassination  at  Char 
lotte,  not  at  Greensboro'.  Breckinridge  telegraphed  the  news  to 
him  from  Greensboro'.  It  is  the  testimony  of  Lewis  F.  Bates  to 
which  they  refer.  But  my  readers,  who  have  so  lately  read  Mr. 
Bates'  testimony,  I  am  sure  will  not  recognize  it  in  the  account 
which  these  authors  give  of  it;  and  as  they  have  failed  in  giving 
us  a  true  account  of  the  testimony,  we  cannot  wonder  if  they  draw 
an  erroneous  conclusion  from  it  inferentially.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  all  the  expressions  that  escaped  from  the  rebel  chief  on 
that  occasion  were  those  of  deep-felt  dissatisfaction  and  bitter 
disappointment.  A  free  rendering  of  his  language  on  that  occa 
sion  would  amount  to  just  this:  "  It  might  just  as  well  not  have 
been  done  at  all,  since  the  job  was  not  thoroughly  done.  If  Andy 
Johnson,  the  beast,  and  Stanton  had  only  been  included,  the  job 
would  then  have  been  complete.  It  would  have  been  of  some 
account  to  us."  His  whole  speech  and  demeanor  on  that  occasion 
show  him  to  have  been  a  co-conspirator,  fully  aware  of  the  scope 
of  their  plot,  and  displeased  at  the  incompleteness  of  the  "job." 

Again,  on  page  432  of  the  Century  for  January,  1890,  we  find 
the  following:  "  He  (Booth)  was  a  fanatical  secessionist;  had 
assisted  at  the  capture  of  John  Brown,  and  had  imbibed,  at  Rich 
mond  and  other  Southern  cities  where  he  had  played,  a  furious 
spirit  of  partisanship  against  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Union  party. 

"After  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  which  rung  the  knell  of 
the  insurrection,  Booth,  like  many  of  the  secessionists  North  and 
South,  was  stung  to  the  quick  by  disappointment.  He  visited 
Canada,  consorted  with  the  rebel  emissaries  there,  and  at  last  — 
whether  or  not  at  their  instigation  cannot  certainly  be  said  —  con 
ceived  a  scheme  to  capture  the  President  and  take  him  to  Rich 
mond.  He  spent  a  great  part  of  the  autumn  and  winter  inducing 
a  small  number  of  loose  fish  of  secession  sympathies  to  join  him 
in  this  fantastic  enterprise.  He  seemed  always  well  supplied  with 


ISO  ASSASSINATION    OF  LINCOLN. 

money,  and  talked  largely  of  his  speculations  in  oil  as  a  source  of 
income ;  but  his  agent  afterwards  testified  that  he  never  realized  a 
dollar  from  that  source  —  that  his  investments,  which  were  incon 
siderable,  were  a  total  loss.  The  winter  passed  away,  and  nothing 
was  accomplished.  On  the  4th  of  March,  Booth  was  at  the 
capitol,  and  created  a  disturbance  by  trying  to  force  his  way 
through  the  line  of  policemen  who  guarded  the  passage  through 
which  the  President  passed  to  the  east  front  of  the  building.  His 
intentions  at  this  time  are  not  known.  He  afterwards  said  he  lost 
an  excellent  chance  of  killing  the  President  that  day.  There  are 
indications  in  the  evidence  given  on  the  trial  of  the  conspirators 
that  they  suffered  some  great  disappointment  in  their  schemes  in 
the  latter  part  of  March ;  and  a  letter  from  Arnold  to  Booth,  dated 
2 /th  March,  showed  that  some  of  them  had  grown  timid  of  the 
consequences  of  their  contemplated  enterprise,  and  were  ready  to 
give  it  up.  He  advised  Booth,  before  going  farther,  to  go  and  see 

how  it  would  be  taken  at  R d.  But  timid  as  they  might  be 

by  nature,  the  whole  group  was  so  completely  under  the  ascen 
dency  of  Booth  that  they  did  not  dare  disobey  him  when  in  his 
presence ;  and  after  the  surrender  of  Lee,  in  an  excess  of  malice 
and  rage  which  was  akin  to  madness,  he  called  them  together  and 
assigned  each  his  part  in  the  new  crimes  [the  italics  are  ours], 
the  purpose  of  which  had  arisen  suddenly  in  his  mind  out  of  the 
ruins  of  the  abandoned  abduction  scheme.  This  plan  was  as 
brief  and  simple  as  it  was  horrible.  Powell,  alias  Payne,  the  stal 
wart,  brutal,  simple-minded  boy  from  Florida,  was  to  murder 
Seward  ;  Atzerodt,  the  comic  villain  of  the  drama,  was  assigned 
to  remove  Andrew  Johnson  ;  Booth  reserved  for  himself  the  most 
difficult  and  most  conspicuous  role  of  the  tragedy;  it  was  Herold's 
duty  to  attend  him  as  a  page,  and  aid  in  his  escape." 

In  this  rather  long  extract,  in  which  the  situation  is  pictured 
with  a  facile  pen,  there  are  are  two  assumptions  that  are  wholly 
irreconcilable  with  the  evidence. 

The  first  is,  that  the  plot  was  at  first  to  capture  the  President  and 
carry  him  to  Richmond,  whether  with  or  without  the  approbation 
of  the  Canada  conspirators,  our  author's  assume  cannot  be  known. 

The  evidence  does  not  show  that  such  a  plot  was  really  enter- 


A    CRITICISM    OF  NICOLA  Y  AND   HA  Y.  i  8  I 

tained  either  by  Booth  or  his  co-conspirators  in  Canada.  Con- 
over  testified  that  he  heard  this  scheme  discussed  at  a  meeting  of 
the  latter  in  February ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  it  was  ever 
considered  practicable,  or  was  really  entertained  by  them.  The 
proposition  was  too  quixotic  to  receive  the  serious  consideration 
of  rational,  intelligent  men.  All  the  testimony  in  regard  to  the 
Canada  conspirators  shows  that  they  were  all  the  time  from  Octo 
ber,  1864,  devoting  all  their  thoughts  to  securing  the  assassination, 
not  only  of  the  President,  but  also  of  the  others  named  in  the 
charge  and  specifications,  and  that  by  nothing  but  the  assassina 
tion  of  all  of  these  men  could  the  political  end  which  they  sought 
be  secured.  This  assumption  of  our  authors  is  shown  by  the 
testimony  to  be  wholly  untenable.  The  next  assumption  to 
which  I  take  exceptions  is  equally  untenable  in  the  light  which 
the  testimony  throws  on  the  subject.  It  is,  that  the  assassination 
was  the  result  of  a  hasty  impulse  of  rage  and  disappointment, 
akin  to  madness ;  that  a  new  crime  was  thus  conceived,  which 
grew  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  abduction  plot,  which  I  have  already 
sufficiently  shown  was  never  entertained  by  any  of  the  parties.  So 
far  from  being  the  result  of  a  hasty  impulse,  the  testimony  clearly 
proves  that  it  had  been  long  entertained,  and  that  they  had  all  been 
planning,  preparing,  and  arranging  for  its  execution  for  months. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  such  popular,  and  usually 
reliable,  authors,  should  have  allowed  themselves  on  this  occasion 
to  write  thus  loosely,  and  express  opinions  and  conclusions  so 
much  at  variance  with  the  testimony.  It  tends  to  obscure  the  truth 
of  history,  and  to  the  formation  of  an  erroneous  public  opinion. 

The  conclusion  at  which  I  have  arrived,  and  expressed  without 
hesitation,  as  to  the  guilt  of  Davis  and  his  Canada  Cabinet  in  this 
matter,  stands  untouched  by  that  expressed  by  these  authors, 
because  it  is  manifest  that  they  not  only  had  never  studied,  but 
were  quite  unfamiliar  with,  the  evidence  on  which  alone  a  right 
judgment  can  be  based. 

All  I  ask  of  my  readers  is,  that  they  will  scan  carefully  what  I 
have  given  as  having  been  fairly  deduced  from  the  testimony 
before  the  Commission,  or  to  study  the  testimony  itself  as  given  in 
Pittman's  official  report  of  the  trial,  and  then  judge  between  us. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

JACOB   THOMPSON'S   BANK   ACCOUNT.     WHAT   BECAME   OF  THE 

MONEY  ? 

THE  testimony  before  the  Commission  developed  the  fact  that 
the  Canada  Cabinet  was  kept  well  supplied  with  money,  and  that 
Jacob  Thompson  was  the  Judas  that  carried  the  bag. 

His  treasury  was  kept  replenished  by  Southern  bills  of  exchange 
on  Liverpool.  Robert  Anson  Campbell,  first  teller  of  the  Ontario 
Bank  of  Montreal,  Canada,  appeared  before  the  Commission  and 
gave  testimony  as  to  Thompson's  transactions  with  his  bank  as 
follows:  "  I  know  Mr.  Jacob  Thompson  very  well.  His  account 
with  the  Ontario  Bank  I  hold  in  my  hand.  It  commenced  May 
3<Dth,  1864,  and  closed  April  iith,  1865.  Prior  to  May  3Oth, 
he  left  with  us  sterling  exchange,  drawn  on  the  rebel  agents  at 
Liverpool,  for  collection.  The  first  advice  we  had  was  May  3Oth> 
when  there  was  placed  to  his  credit  ^"2,061  i?s.  and  ij^.,  and 
,£20,618  115.  4<:/.,  amounting  to  $109,965.63.  The  aggregate 
amount  of  the  credits  is  $649,873.28,  and  there  is  a  balance  still 
left  to  his  credit  of  $1,766.23;  all  the  rest  has  been  drawn  out. 
Since  about  the  ist  of  March  he  has  drawn  out  $300,000,  in  sterl 
ing  exchange  and  deposit  receipts.  On  the  6th  of  April  last  there 
is  a  deposit  receipt  for  $180,000.  The  banks  in  Canada  give  de 
posit  receipts,  which  are  paid  when  presented,  upon  fifteen  days 
notice.  On  the  8th  of  April  he  drew  a  bill  of  ^446  I2s.  id.,  and 
on  the  same  day  ^4,000,  sterling.  On  the  24th  of  March  he  drew 
$100,000  in  exchange;  at  another  time,  $19,000.  This  sterling 
exchange  was  drawn  to  his  credit,  and  also  the  deposit  receipts. 

"  Mr.  Jacob  Thompson  has  left  Montreal  since  the  I4th  of  April 
last.  I  heard  him  say  he  was  going  away.  He  used  to  come  to 
the  bank  two  or  three  times  a  week,  and  the  last  time  he  was  in 
182 


JACOB    TIIOMPSOX'S   BAXK  ACCOUXT.  183 

he  gave  a  check  to  the  hotel  keeper,  which  I  cashed,  and  he 
then  left  the  hotel.  His  friends  stated  to  me  that  he  was  going  to 
Halifax,  overland.  Navigation  was  not  open  then,  and  I  was  told 
he  was  going  overland  to  Halifax,  and  thence  to  Europe.  I 
thought  it  strange  at  the  time  that  he  was  going  overland,  when 
by  waiting  two  weeks  longer  he  could  have  taken  a  steamer ;  and 
it  was  talked  of  in  the  bank  among  the  clerks.  The  account  was 
opened  with  Jacob  Thompson  individually.  The  newspaper  report 
was  that  he  was  financial  agent  of  the  Confederate  States.  We 
only  knew  that  he  brought  Southern  sterling  exchange  bills,  drawn 
on  Southern  agents  in  the  old  country,  and  brought  them  to  our 
bank  for  collection.  How  they  came  to  him  we  did  not  know. 
He  was  not,  as  far  as  I  know,  engaged  in  any  business  in  Canada 
requiring  these  large  sums  of  money. 

"  He  had  other  large  money  transactions  in  Canada.  I  knew  of 
one  transaction  of  $50,000,  that  came  through  the  Niagara  District 
Bank,  at  St.  Catherines,  a  check  drawn  to  the  order  of  Mr.  Clement 
C.  Clay,  and  deposited  by  him  in  that  bank;  they  sent  it  to  us, 
August  1 6th,  1864,  to  put  to  their  credit. 

"  Thompson  has  several  times  bought  from  us  United  States 
notes  or  greenbacks.  On  August  25th  he  bought  $15,000  in 
greenbacks,  and  on  July  I4th,  $19,125.  This  was  the  amount 
he  paid  in  gold,  and  at  that  time  the  exchange  was  about  55. 
I  could  not  say  what  the  amount  of  greenbacks  was,  but  that  is 
what  he  paid  for  it  in  gold.  On  March  I4th  last  he  bought  $1,000 
worth  of  greenbacks  at  44!,  for  which  he  paid  $552.20  in  gold. 
On  the  2Oth  of  March  he  bought  ^6,500  sterling  at  9^.  He  also 
bought  drafts  on  New  York  in  several  instances.  J.  Wilkes  Booth, 
the  actor,  had  a  small  account  at  our  bank.  I  had  one  or  t\vo 
transactions  with  him,  but  do  not  remember  more  at  present. 
He  may  have  been  in  the  bank  a  dozen  times ;  and  I  distinctly 
remember  seeing  him  once.  He  has  still  left  to  his  credit  $455, 
arising  from  a  deposit  made  by  him,  consisting  of  $200,  in  $20 
Montreal  bills,  and  Davis's  check  on  Merchant's  Bank  of  $255. 
Davis  is  a  broker,  who  kept  his  office  opposite  the  St.  Lawrence 
Hall,  and  is,  I  think,  either  from  Richmond  or  Baltimore. 

"When  Booth  came  into  the  bank  for  this  exchange  he  bought 


I  84  ASSASSLVATIOX   OF  LINCOLN. 

a  bill  of  exchange  for  £61  and  some  odd  shillings,  remarking,  '  I 
am  going  to  run  the  blockade,  and  in  case  I  should  be  captured 
can  my  capturers  make  use  of  the  exchange?  '  I  told  him  they 
could  not  unless  he  endorsed  the  bill,  which  was  made  payable  to 
his  order.  He  then  said  he  would  take  $300,  and  pulled  out  that 
amount,  I  think,  in  American  gold.  I  figured  up  what  $300 
would  come  to  at  the  rate  of  exchange.  I  think  it  was  9J,  and 
gave  him  a  bill  of  exchange  for  £61  and  some  odd  shillings." 

The  bills  of  exchange  found  on  Booth's  body  at  the  time  of  his 
capture  were  here  exhibited  to  the  witness,  who  said,  "  These  are 
the  Ontario  Bank  bills  of  exchange  that  were  sold  to  Booth,  bear 
ing  date  October  2/th,  1864. 

Testimony  of  Daniel  S.  Eastwood. 
THE    BEN  WOOD   DRAFT. 

The  following  is  the  testimony  of  Daniel  S.  Eastwood,  in 
regard  to  Jacob  Thompson's  bank  account,  and  serves  to  account 
for  $25,000  of  his  expenditures:  "  I  am  assistant  manager  of  the 
Montreal  branch  of  the  Ontario  Bank,  Canada.  I  was  officially 
acquainted  with  Jacob  Thompson,  formerly  of  Mississippi,  who  has 
for  some  time  been  sojourning  in  Canada,  and  have  knowledge  of 
his  account  with  our  bank,  a  copy  of  which  was  presented  to  this 
Commission  by  Mr.  Campbell,  our  assistant  teller. 

"The  moneys  to  Mr.  Thompson's  credit  accrued  from  the 
negotiation  of  bills  of  exchange,  drawn  by  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  of  the  so-called  Confederate  States  on  Frazier  Trenholm 
&  Company,  of  Liverpool.  They  were  understood  to  be  the  finan 
cial  agents  of  the  Confederate  States  at  Liverpool,  and  the  face 
of  the  bills,  I  believe,  bore  that  inscription.  Among  the  disposi 
tions  made  from  that  fund,  by  Jacob  Thompson,  was  $25,000 
paid  in  accordance  with  the  following  requisition  :  — 

4329.  MONTREAL,  Aug.  loth,  1864. 

Wanted  from  the  Ontario  Bank,  3  days'  sight, 
On  New  York, 

Favor  of  BENJAMIN  WOOD,  Esq. 
$25,000 

For current  funds. 

$10,000 
Deliv.  60  p.  c. 
Ex.  $15.00  A.   M. 


JACOB    THOMPSON'S  BANK  ACCOUNT.  185 

"  The  '  $10,000  '  underneath  the  $25,000  is  the  purchase  money 
in  gold  of  $25,000  worth  of  United  States  funds. 

"  At  Mr.  Thompson's  request  the  name  of  Benjamin  Wood  was 
erased  (the  pen  being  just  struck  through  it),  and  my  name  as 
an  officer  of  the  bank  written  immediately  beneath  it,  that  the 
draft  might  be  negotiable  without  putting  any  other  name  to  it. 

"  I  have  in  my  hand,  it  having  been  obtained  from  the  cashier 
of  the  City  Bank  in  New  York,  the  original  draft  for  the  $25,000 
on  which  that  requisition  was  made  by  Mr.  Thompson,  in  the 
name  of  Benjamin  Wood.  It  reads :  — 

$25,000.  THE   ONTARIO   BANK.  No.  4329. 

MONTREAL,  loth  of  August,  1864. 

At  three  day's  sight  please  pay  to  the  order  of  D.  8.  EASTWOOD,  in  current  funds, 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  value  received,  and  charge  the  sume  to  account  of  this 
branch. 

To  Cashier  City  Bank,  H.  Y.  STANUS, 

New  York.  Manager. 

INDORSED. 

Pay  to  Hon.  BENJAMIN  WOOD,  Esq.,  or  order. 
D.  S.  EASTWOOD. 
B.  WOOD. 

"  I  have  found  this  draft  in  the  hands  of  the  payee  of  the  City 
Bank  in  New  York,  and  I  understand  from  the  cashier  it  has  been 
paid.  Mr.  Thompson  was  frequently  in  the  habit  of  drawing 
moneys  in  the  name  of  an  officer  of  the  bank,  so  as  to  conceal  the 
person  for  whom  it  was  really  intended. 

"  A  good  deal  of  Thompson's  exchange  was  drawn  in  that  way, 
so  that  there  is  no  indication,  except  from  the  bank  or  the  locality 
on  which  the  bill  was  drawn,  to  show  where  use  was  made  of  the 
funds.  Large  amounts  were  drawn  for,  at  his  instance,  on  the 
banks  of  New  York,  but  we  were  not  acquainted  with  the  use  they 
were  put  to. 

"  The  Ben.  Wood,  to  whom  the  draft  was  made  payable,  is,  I 
believe,  the  member  of  Congress,  and  the  owner  of  the  New  York 
News."  Jacob  Thompson's  bank  account,  already  in  evidence,  was 
handed  to  the  witness,  who  said  :  "  This  is  a  copy  of  Jacob  Thomp 
son's  banking  account  with  us,  as  testified  to  by  Robert  Anson 


I  86  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Campbell.  I  see  in  the  account  entries  of  funds  that  were  used 
for  purpose  of  exchange  on  New  York,  and  also  on  London.  The 
item  $189,999,  on  the  ^th  of  April,  1865,  was  issued  in  deposit 
receipts,  which  may  be  paid  anywhere." 

In  answer  to  a  question  by  Mr.  Aiken,  counsel  for  defense,  the 
witness  said :  "  I  do  not  remember  any  drafts  cashed  at  our  bank 
in  favor  of  James  Watson  Wallace,  Richard  Montgomery,  or  James 
B.  Merritt.  I  have  no  recollection  of  the  names." 

Evidence  of  George  Wilkes :  "  I  am  acquainted  with  Benjamin 
Wood,  of  New  York,  and  am  familiar  with  his  handwriting.  The 
signature  at  the  back  of  that  bill  of  exchange  I  should  take  to  be 
his.  At  the  date  of  this  bill  Benjamin  Wood  was  a  member  of 
Congress  of  the  United  States.  He  was  editor  and  proprietor  of 
the  New  York  News,  so  he  told  me  himself.  The  paper,  I  have 
heard,  has  been  recently  managed  by  John  Mitchell,  late  editor  or 
assistant  editor  of  the  Richmond  Examiner  and  the  Richmond  En 
quirer''  The  endorsement  was  further  proven  to  be  in  the  hand 
writing  of  Ben.  Wood  by  the  testimony  of  Abram  D.  BurrelL 
This  testimony  not  only  accounts  for  $25,000  paid  to  Ben. 
Wood,  then  a  member  of  Congress  from  New  York  City,  for 
services  rendered  to  the  rebel  cause  in  the  halls  of  legislation, 
or  attempted  to  be  there  rendered,  but  more  particularly  in 
the  management  of  the  New  York  News.  In  his  capacity  as 
a  legislator  as  well  as  that  of  editor,  Ben.  Wood  made  himself 
conspicuous  as  a  traitor  to  his  country,  and  thus  he  was  re 
warded  by  Jacob  Thompson  for  his  services  to  the  rebel  cause. 
The  testimony  also  throws  light  on  Jacob's  method  of  doing  busi 
ness  in  a  secret,  underhanded  manner,  in  order  that  the  object  and 
purport  of  his  transactions  being  thus  concealed  from  public  knowl 
edge  he  could  engage  in  any  wicked  scheme  without  detection. 
Witness  his  drafts  for  $180,000  on  the  6th  of  April,  all  being  put 
in  such  form  that  they  could  not  well  be  traced,  and  so  that  it 
could  not  well  be  ascertained  who  were  the  payees,  or  where  paid, 
or  whether  they  were  ever  paid  at  all.  They  were  probably  held 
by  this  skilfull  secret  financier  in  such  shape  that,  upon  the  failure 
to  fulfill  the  contract  and  then  come  forward  and  claim  the  reward, 
they  reverted  to  the  Hon.  Jacob  Thompson. 


JACOB    THOMPSON'S  BANK  ACCOUNT,  l8/ 

The  testimony  of  these  witnesses  reveals  several  very  important 
facts  bearing  on  the  subject  of  our  investigations.  First,  it  is 
shown  that  the  rebel  agents  in  Canada  were  kept  well  supplied 
with  money  by  the  Richmond  government,  their  credits  in  the 
Canada  banks  arising  from  Southern  bills  of  exchange  on  the 
rebel  agents  at  Liverpool.  Now  the  question  arises,  for  what 
purpose  was  this  money  placed  at  their  disposal?  They  were 
sent  by  the  rebel  government  to  Canada  to  work  for  the  success  of 
the  rebellion  in  ways  and  by  means  which  have  been  disclosed 
by  the  testimony.  Of  course,  then,  they  were  supported  whilst  in 
Canada  by  the  Richmond  government,  and  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  at  a  fixed  salary  that  had  been  agreed  upon  in  advance. 
Then,  of  course,  their  personal  expenses  had  to  be  met,  and  as 
they  were  by  no  means  parsimonious  in  their  habits,  this  item 
alone  would  make  a  considerable  draft  on  their  treasury.  Then 
they  employed  a  good  many  men,  escaped  rebel  soldiers  and 
other  rebel  refugees  at  various  times  to  execute  various  schemes 
concocted  by  them  to  aid  the  rebellion. 

One  witness  stated  that  they  said  they  had  eight  hundred  men 
secreted  in  Chicago,  in  the  summer  of  1864,  to  aid  in  a  plan  to 
liberate  the  rebel  prisoners  at  Camp  Douglass,  which  plan  was 
frustrated  by  the  government  being  informed  of  it  in  advance  by 
friends  in  Canada  who  were  cognizant  of  the  plot.  Of  course  the 
expenses  of  all  of  these  men  had  to  be  met,  and  no  doubt  liberal 
compensation 'made  to  those  who  were  entrusted  with  the  execu 
tion  of  the  plot.  So,  also,  the  plot  to  burn  the  city  of  New  York, 
the  St.  Albans  raid,  and  various  other  schemes  of  like  character 
cost  a  good  deal  of  money.  Of  course  they  defrayed  all  of  the 
expenses  of  the  trial  of  the  St.  Albans  raiders  for  extradition. 
The  scheme  of  spreading  disease  and  death  through  infected 
clothing,  in  which  Dr.  Blackburn  was  employed  as  their  agent,  no 
doubt  cost  them  a  good  round  sum.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
Blackburn  employed  Godfrey  Joseph  Hyams  as  his  agent  to  get 
the  infected  clothing  sold  at  such  places  in  the  United  States  as 
he  indicated,  under  the  promise  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars ; 
and  although  he  and  Thompson  chiselled  Hyams  out  of  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  thousand  nine  hundred  dollars  of  this,  it 


I  88  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

is  quite  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Blackburn  received  large  pay 
for  his  risk  and  trouble  in  going  to  Bermuda  and  carefully  infect 
ing  this  clothing. 

The  witness,  Montgomery,  testified  that  he  heard  Clay  say,  in 
speaking  of  these  enterprises,  that  "  they  always  had  plenty  of 
money  to  pay  for  anything  that  was  worth  paying  for."  We 
have  seen  from  the  testimony  that  Booth,  and  we  have  good 
reason  to  infer  that  Surratt  also,  were  kept  plentifully  supplied 
with  money  from  the  time  that  a  definate  arrangement  was  made 
with  them  to  take  charge  of  the  assassination  job  in  the  latter  part 
of  October,  1864,  until  the  final  accomplishment,  so  far  as  it  was 
accomplished,  of  their  plot.  We  have  seen  that  they  were  both 
without  occupation,  or  legitimate  source  of  income,  during  all  that 
time,  and  that  they  were  actively  engaged  in  preparation  for  their 
work,  and  were  going  in  a  style  of  prodigality  in  their  expendi 
tures,  travelling  a  great  deal,  boarding  not  only  themselves,  but 
also  several  of  the  hired  assistants,  at  hotels  in  Washington, 
without  regard  to  cost,  even  stipulating  in  the  case  of  Payne 
that  his  meals  should  be  served  to  him  in  his  room.  Then  they 
were  every  way  profligate  in  their  habits,  especially  in  drinking 
and  smoking — both  costly  vices  —  and  also  in  purchasing  horses 
and  hiring  them  kept  at  livery  stables ;  and  still  further  in  hiring 
horses  of  livery  men  for  their  excursions  about  the  suburbs  of  the 
city  in  perfecting  their  plans  for  escape.  Again,  Booth  always 
had  money  to  use  in  drawing  into  the  plot,  and  in  holding  assist 
ants.  No  doubt  the  fifty  dollars  sent  to  Arnold  in  a  letter  came 
from  Booth ;  and  we  know  he  sent  in  a  letter  fifty  dollars  to 
Chester  to  induce  him  to  join  him,  and  although  he  allowed 
Chester  to  return  this  money  it  was  not  until  he  had  fully  satisfied 
himself  that  it  was  useless  to  press  Chester  any  further  on  the 
subject.  They  were  evidently  as  profuse  in  their  promises  of 
reward  to  their  co-conspirators  whom  they  hired  as  Blackburn 
was  to  Hyams.  Booth  offered  to  deposit  three  thousand  dollars 
for  a  retainer's  fee  to  Chester;  and,  in  addition  to  this,  assured  him 
that  if  he  would  go  into  the  conspiracy  he  would  never  want  for 
money  as  long  as  he  lived.  Even  so  worthless  a  fellow  as 
Atzerodt  had  been  fed  with  the  idea  that  he  would  soon  have  as 


JACOB    THOMPSON'S  BANK  ACCOUNT.  189 

much  gold  as  would   keep   him   a  gentleman  the  balance  of  his 
life. 

Now,  where  was  all  this  money  to  come  from?  Evidently  from 
Jacob  Thompson's  bank  account.  The  evidence  of  the  bank 
teller  shows  that  the  bill  of  exchange  which  was  found  on  Booth's 
body  after  his  death  was  the  same  bought  of  him  by  Booth. 
This  bill  of  exchange  was  dated  Oct.  27,  1864. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Selby  letter  (the  Selby  being, 
no  doubt,  an  alias,  as  they  were  all  sailing  under  aliases)  reveals 
the  fact  that  it  was  at  that  meeting  of  the  conspirators  in  Mont 
real,  about  the  last  of  October,  1864,  that  the  plot  was  matured, 
and  arrangements  made  for  carrying  it  into  effect.  No  doubt  this 
arrangement  made  between  the  Canada  Cabinet  and  Booth  and 
his  fellow  assassins  involved  a  large  expenditure  of  money  —  such 
an  amount,  that  when  the  "  Cabinet  "  came  to  consider  the  matter 
over  they  shrunk  from  the  responsibility  and  called  a  halt  until 
they  could  get  the  sanction  of  the  Richmond  government  in  such 
a  form  that  they  could  have  a  voucher  to  show  for  this  expendi 
ture.  Hence,  their  after  regret  that  "  the  boys  had  not  been 
allowed  to  act  when  they  wanted  to."  This  sanction  was  delivered 
to  them  by  Surratt  on  the  6th  of  April,  when  Thompson,  placing 
his  hand  on  the  despatches,  exclaimed,  "This  makes  the  thing  all 
right !  "  It  would  be  a  very  singular  coincidence,  indeed,  on  the 
theory  that  Davis,  Thompson,  and  the  others  in  Canada  were  not 
in  the  conspiracy,  that  on  this  very  day  Thompson  drew  on  his 
bank  account  for  $180,000  by  a  deposit  receipt;  and  that  on  the 
8th,  two  days  later,  he  drew  for  ,£446  125.,  id.,  and  then  again  on 
the  same  day  for  ,£4,000  sterling,  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to 
over  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Assuming  this  to  have  been 
the  cost  of  the  assassinations  for  which  Booth  and  Surratt  had 
made  themselves  responsible,  and  that  on  which  they  were  count 
ing  to  keep  them  well  supplied  with  money  all  the  balance  of  their 
lives,  the  question  arises  what  became  of  this  money?  Of  course 
their  hired  assassins  were  only  to  be  paid  when  they  had  fulfilled 
their  contract.  The  money  was  subject  to  this  contingency; 
hence  there  was,  no  doubt,  a  provisional  arrangement  by  which 
Thompson  held  control  over  the  reward  promised  them,  and,  when 


190  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

we  look  at  the  final  result  of  the  thing,  we  can  readily  see  that  the 
money,  in  the  end,  reverted  to  Thompson. 

There  is  another  very  remarkable  coincidence  revealed  in  this 
testimony ;  that  is,  the  fact  of  Thompson's  leaving  Canada  on  the 
1 4th  of  April,  1865,  for  Europe,  travelling  overland  to  Halifax, 
when  by  waiting  two  weeks  longer  he  could  have  gone  by 
steamer.  This  was  such  an  unusual  circumstance  as  to  require 
explanation,  and  excited  remarks  amongst  the  clerks  in  the  bank 
at  the  time.  If  we  have  been  led  by  the  evidence  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  government  fully  sustained  its  charge  and  specifica 
tion  against  Jacob  Thompson,  we  can  at  once  explain  this  coinci 
dence  of  his  leaving  Montreal  for  Europe  by  the  overland  route  to 
Halifax  on  the  very  day  on  which  he  expected  the  plot  to  be 
consummated.  He  could  not  afford  to  wait  for  the  opening  of 
navigation,  lest  his  flight  might  be  impeded  by  arrest,  and  a 
warrant  or  demand  for  his  extradition  on  the  charge  that  he  was 
a  member  of  the  conspiracy.  "  The  wicked  flee  where  no  man 
pursueth."  A  guilty  conscience  is  its  own  accuser.  This  remark 
able  coincidence,  equally  with  the  other,  is  presumptive  evidence 
of  his  guilt. 

Booth  kept  his  bank  account  in  the  same  bank  with  Thompson, 
and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  his  credits  were  from 
money  supplied  to  him  by  Thompson.  When  he  drew  the  bill  of 
October  2/th,  which  was  found  on  his  person  after  his  death,  he 
explained  that  he  was  going  to  run  the  blockade.  We  have 
seen  what  he  meant  by  that ;  and  this  gives  additional  evidence 
that  the  assassination  plot  was  fully  matured,  as  shown  by  the 
Selby  letter,  at  that  time,  and  that  on  the  part  of  Booth,  acting 
under  the  latitude  of  discretion  contained  in  that  letter,  he  was 
only  biding  his  time,  waiting  and  watching  for,  and  seeking  to 
make,  an  opportunity;  and  that  had  he  not  been  restrained  by 
Thompson  until  he  could  get  authority  from  Richmond  that  would 
serve  him  as  a  voucher  for  the  large  outlay  of  money  involved, 
he  would  have  acted  long  before  he  finally  did. 

Now  the  question  comes  up,  what  became  of  the  money  de 
posited  to  Thompson's  credit  by  the  Confederate  government  in 
the  banks  of  Canada?  We  have  seen  that  he  had  deposited 


JACOB    THOMPSON'S  BANK  ACCOUNT.  191 

to  his  credit  in  the  Ontario  Bank  of  Montreal  $649,873.28,  and 
have  learned  that  he  had,  in  addition  to  this,  large  transactions  in 
other  Canada  banks.  The  reduction  of  his  account  in  the  Mont 
real  bank  of  over  $200,000  by  the  drafts  of  the  6th  and  8th  of 
April,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  was  dependent  upon  con 
tingencies  for  their  payment  which  were  never  fulfilled,  and  so 
this  large  amount  reverted  to  Thompson.  The  Confederate 
government  died  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  about  this  time, 
leaving  no  executor  with  will  annexed,  and  no  one  to  look  after 
its  assets,  or  court  authorized  to  appoint  an  administrator ;  and  so 
it  would  seem  that  in  this  case  Jacob  Thompson  was  not  only  a 
man  that  had  achieved  notoriety,  but  that  he  also  had  riches  thrust 
upon  him.  Perhaps  he  and  Clay,  Tucker,  Sanders,  Cleary,  and 
Holcombe  held  a  court  in  equity,  and  distributed  amongst  them 
the  assets  thus  accidentally  left  in  their  hands. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE    CASE    OF   MRS.    SURRATT. 

So  earnest  and  persistent  have  been  the  efforts  of  rebel  priests, 
politicians  and  editors  to  pervert  public  opinion  in  regard  to  the 
case  of  Mrs.  Surratt  that  it  becomes  necessary  to  devote  some 
special  consideration  to  it  even  at  the  expense  of  some  repetition. 
Immediately  after  her  execution  a  wild  howl  was  set  up  by  these 
people  for  the  purpose  of  making  political  capital  out  of  the 
sympathy  and  tender  feeling  which  we  all  have  for  her  sex.  Her 
innocence  was  boldly  asserted,  and  the  government  was  denounced 
for  her  execution.  They  suppressed  or  set  at  naught  all  the  evi 
dence  against  her,  and  made  many  false  statements  to  subserve 
the  purpose  they  had  in  view.  These  efforts  were  only  made  by 
those  who  had  been  the  enemies  of  the  government  during  the 
war  —  who  had  either  asserted  the  right  of  secession,  or  denied 
the  right  of  the  government  to  coerce  (to  use  their  own  expression) 
a  State  into  submission  to  its  authority. 

Because  President  Lincoln  felt  that  the  obligations  of  his  official 
oath  required  him  to  maintain  the  authority  of  the  government 
and  to  preserve  the  Union  they  had  all  through  the  terrible 
struggle  in  which  he  was  engaged  been  his  bitter  enemies.  They 
were  actuated  by  a  spirit  of  malignant  hatred  of  the  Union  cause, 
and  stood  ready  to  oppose  and  denounce  every  measure  that  the 
President  had  found  necessary  to  the  success  of  his  purpose  and 
work.  Their  hostility  to  the  government  was  only  rendered  more 
intense  by  its  success  in  putting  down  the  rebellion,  and  so  they 
were  ready  to  seize  on  this  occasion,  that  they  might,  out  of  it, 
make  political  capital.  This  effort  has  never  been  abandoned,  and 
the  case  of  Mrs.  Surratt  continues  to  be  worked  for  all  that  it  is. 

192 


MRS.  MARY  E    SURRATT. 


THE    CASE    OF  MRS.    SURRATT. 


193 


worth  by  that  portion  of  the  Northern  press  that  inherits  the  old 
copperhead  animus. 

To  fully  understand  the  case  of  Mrs.  Surratt  we  must  make  her 
acquaintance  as  early  as  1863.  We  find  her  at  that  time  living 
at  Surrattsville,  in  Prince  George  County,  Md.,  ten  miles  below 
Washington  City.  The  villa  called  Surrattsville  consisted  simply 
of  a  country  tavern  owned  and  occupied  by  Mrs.  Surratt.  She 
was  a  widow  with  three  children,  two  sons  and  a  daughter.  The 
elder  son  had  gone  to  Texas  and  had  volunteered  in  the  rebel 
service.  The  younger  son,  John  H.  Surratt,  a  young  man  of  nine 
teen,  had  left  St.  Charles  College  in  the  summer  of  1861,  not  to 
volunteer  as  a  soldier,  but  to  engage  in  the  secret  service  of  the 
Confederacy.  There  \vas  a  United  States  post-office  at  Surratts 
ville  ;  and  this  young  man,  in  addition  to  his  duties  as  a  Confederate 
spy  and  carrier  of  despatches  for  the  rebel  government,  handled 
Uncle  Sam's  mail  and  delivered  it  to  his  neighbors.  From  all  this 
we  can  readily  gather  the  attitude  of  Mrs.  Surratt  toward  the 
government.  On  the  trial  of  John  H.  Surratt,  John  F.  Tibbetts 
testified  that  in  1863  he  was  carrying  the  mail  from  Washington 
to  Charlotte  Hall,  and  that  he  stopped  at  Surrattsville  to  deliver 
the  mail  at  that  office.  On  one  occasion,  whilst  waiting  for  the 
mail  there,  he  heard  Mrs.  Surratt  say  that  she  would  give  one 
thousand  dollars  to  any  one  that  would  kill  Lincoln.  He  also 
testified  that  when  there  was  a  Union  victory  he  heard  her  son 
say  in  her  presence  that,  "  The  d — d  Northern  army  and  the 
leader  thereof  ought  to  be  sent  to  hell." 

Here  we  see  the  deep  and  traitorous  hostility  to  the  govern 
ment  of  these  people  who  were  in  its  service  under  the  obligations 
of  an  official  oath.  In  the  fall  of  1864  Mrs.  Surratt  removed  to 
Washington,  taking  the  house  541  on  H  Street.  She  rented  her 
Surrattsville  property  to  a  man  by  the  name  of  Lloyd.  What 
prompted  this  change  is  not  known  to  the  writer.  Her  son  had 
so  won  the  confidence  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  Judah  P.  Benjamin 
that  he  had  for  a  considerable  time  been  entrusted  by  them,  not 
only  with  important  despatches,  but  also  with  large  sums  of  money 
sent  to  their  agents  in  Canada.1  Indeed,  this  seems  to  have  been-t 

1  Trial  John  H.  Surratt,  p.  468,  testimony  of  Dr.  McMillen. 


194  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

the  only  employment  in  which  he  was  then  engaged ;  and  at  this 
time  the  assassination  plot,  as  we  have  seen,  was  engaging  the 
serious  attention  both  of  Davis  and  his  agents  in  Canada,  and 
that  both  Surratt  and  Booth  were  in  the  confidence  of  these  men, 
though  they  were  as  yet  not  personally  acquainted  with  each  other. 

Booth  arranged  with  Dr.  S.  A.  Mudd  to  come  to  Washington 
to  introduce  him  to  Surratt,  which  he  did  on  the  23d  day  of 
December,  1864.  Their  acquaintanceship  ripened  into  the  closest 
intimacy  with  a  rapidity  that  was  due  to  a  common  sympathy  and 
a  common  purpose.  They  were  from  that  time  much  together, 
and  Booth  at  once  became  a  frequent  and  constant  visitor  at  the 
house  of  Mrs.  Surratt.1  From  this  time  on  the  evidence  begins 
to  accumulate,  showing  her  to  have  been  fully  informed  of  the  work 
in  which  they  were  engaged,  and  to  have  fully  entered  into  their 
scheme  as  a  helper.2  There  were  a  number  of  boarders  in  her 
house.  These  merely  received  the  common  civilities  of  personal 
intercourse  from  Booth ;  but  with  John  and  his  mother  his  inter 
course  was  always  of  a  private  and  confidential  character. 

Booth's  habit  was  to  come  into  that  house,  and  after  the  com 
mon-place  civilities  to  tap  John  on  the  shoulder  and  ask  him  to 
spare  him  a  moment  of  his  time,  when  they  they  would  retire  to  an 
upstairs  room  and  remain  in  conference  sometimes  for  two  or  three 
hours.  In  John's  absence  (and  he  was  frequently  away)  Booth  would 
ask  Mrs.  Surratt  to  grant  him  a  private  interview,  which  she  always 
did.  What  business  could  this  man,  who  had  been  so  recently 
introduced  to  the  family,  have  had  that  required  so  much  and 
such  strict  privacy?  Whatever  it  was,  Mrs.  Surratt  was  trusted  by 
him  equally  with  her  son.  We  have  now  presented  the  state  of 
things  in  that  house  between  these  parties  as  shown  by  undisputed 
testimony,  and  will  proceed  to  show  from  the  further  evidence  in 
the  case  what  the  business  was  that  they  had  on  hand. 

Shortly  after  John  H.  Surratt  made  the  acquaintance  of  Booth, 
Atzerodt  became  a  frequent  visitor  at  Mrs.  Surratt's.3  The  first 

1   Official  Report  of  the  Conspiracy  Trial,  p.  114,  testimony  of  L.  J.  Wiechmann. 
-  See  Report  Conspiracy  Trial,  pp.  114,  115  and  pp.  85-87.     Testimony  of    L.  J. 
Wiechmann  and  John  M.  Lloyd. 

{  Official  Report  Conspiracy  Trial,  p.  115- 


THE    CASE    OF  MRS.    SURRATT.  195 

time  he  came  he  inquired  for  "  John  H.  Surratt  or  Mrs.  Surratt." 
How  did  he  know  of  Mrs.  Surratt  in  such  a  way  that  he  could 
make  her  the  alternative  of  John?  In  the  early  part  of  March 
Payne  called  at  the  Surratt  house,  and  inquired  for  John  H.  Sur 
ratt,  but  when  told  that  he  was  not  at  home  he  asked  to  see  Mrs. 
Surratt.1  He  was  an  entire  stranger,  but  knew  enough,  not  only 
about  John  but  also  about  his  mother,  to  make  her  the  alternative 
in  the  absence  of  her  son.  He  passed  under  the  alias  of  Wood  on 
this  visit.  Mrs.  Surratt  took  him  in  for  the  night,  and  got  her 
boarder,  Wiechmann,  to  take  him  to  his  room,  where  she  had  his 
supper  served  to  him.  Would  she  thus  have  acted  toward  a 
stranger  of  whom  she  knew  nothing?  It  is  not  to  be  believed. 
Payne  carried  the  key  to  her  hospitality  in  some  secret  sign  that 
had  been  adopted  by  these  conspirators.  Toward  the  last  of 
March  Payne  called  again,  giving  the  name  of  Payne  and  claim 
ing  to  be  a  Baptist  preacher.  He  remained  in  the  house  this  time 
for  three  days,  and  on  one  of  these  days  was  surprised  by  Wiech 
mann  coming  into  his  room,  where  he  found  John  H.  Surratt  and 
Payne  fencing  with  bowie-knives,  and  with  revolvers  lying  on  the 
bed;  there  were  also  four  sets  of  new  spurs.  Wiechmann  spoke 
about  what  he  had  seen  to  Mrs.  Surratt,  saying  "  that  he  did  not 
like  the  look  of  things,"  when  she  said,  "  Oh,  you  need  not  be 
disturbed  about  it ;  John  rides  a  good  deal  in  the  country,  and 
has  to  carry  these  things  to  protect  himself."  : 

It  was  during  this  visit  that  Booth,  Su-rratt,  Payne,  Atzerodt, 
Herold,  and  one  or  two  others,  started  out  on  an  expedition  from 
which  they  returned  under  circumstances  of  disappointment  and 
rage,  as  heretofore  recounted,  and  of  the  import  of  which  Mrs. 
Surratt  was  seen  to  have  been  fully  informed,  as  she  was  weeping, 
and  declined  going  to  her  dinner.  Upon  the  failure  of  this  expedi 
tion  Booth  went  to  New  York  and  Payne  to  Baltimore.  The  plot, 
however,  was  not  abandoned  ;  and  for  its  future  prosecution  it  seemed 
desirable  to  Booth  and  Surratt  to  transfer  Payne  to  Washington, 
and  that  in  the  most  secret  manner,  and  there  to  keep  him  hidden 
away  until  he  was  wanted.  They  procured  a  room  for  him  at  the 

1  Official  Report  Conspiracy  Trial,  p.  114. 

2  Official  Report  Conspiracy  Trial,  p.  115,  and  Trial  of  John  H.  Surratt,  pp.  377,  378. 


196  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Herndon  House,  representing  him  to  be  a  delicate  gentleman, 
and  stipulating  that  his  meals  should  be  served  to  him  in  his 
room.1  It  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Wiechmann  that  Booth  and 
Surratt  had  placed  some  one  in  that  house,  and  he  was  naturally 
curious  to  know  whom  it  was.  Atzerodt  let  the  secret  out,  and 
when  Wiechmann  spoke  of  its  being  Payne  who  was  quartered  in 
the  Herndon  House,  Mrs.  Surratt  asked  him  how  he  knew.  When 
he  gave  Atzerodt  as  the  source  of  his  information  she  manifested 
some  displeasure.  But  we  are  not  left  to  infer  from  this  that  she 
had  been  informed  of  the  disposition  that  had  been  made  of  Payne, 
for  a  night  or  two  after  that,  when  returning  from  an  evening  ser 
vice  at  St.  Patrick's  Church,  in  company  with  Wiechmann  and 
three  or  four  young  ladies,  she  stopped  when  they  came  to  the 
Herndon  House,  and  asked  the  party  to  wait  on  her  a  few  minu.tes 
whilst  she  should  go  in  and  see  Payne.2  They  waited  on  this 
interview  for  about  twenty  minutes.  Thus  we  see  that  she  was 
notified  of  every  move  that  was  made  in  preparation  for  the 
assassination. 

Not  only  were  Booth,  Atzerodt,  and  Payne  visitors  at  Mrs.  Sur- 
ratt's,  but  also  the  notorious  rebel  spy  and  blockade  runner,  Mrs. 
Slater,  alias  Brown,  was  one  of  her  visitors.  This  woman  stayed 
all  night  with  her  toward  the  latter  part  of  March,  1865,  and  was 
accompanied  by  Mrs.  Surratt  and  her  son  John  when  she  left  on 
the  next  morning,  Mrs.  Surratt  going  as  far  as  Surrattsville,  whilst 
her  son  accompanied  her  to  Richmond  in  place  of  a  Mr.  Howell 
whom  she  had  expected  to  have  for  her  escort,  but  who  had  been 
arrested,  and  so  Surratt  took  his  place.3 

On  one  occasion  Mrs.  Surratt  sent  Mr.  Wiechmann  to  Booth 
with  a  message  that  she  wanted  to  see  him  on  private  business,  to 
which  Booth  responded. 

On  the  Tuesday  before  the  assassination  Mrs.  Surratt  asked 
Wiechmann  to  drive  her  down  to  Surrattsville,  and  upon  his  con 
senting  to  do  so  she  sent  him  to  Booth  to  request  the  use  of  his 
horse  and  buggy  for  the  trip.  Booth  told  Wiechmann  that  he 

1  Conspiracy  Trial,  p.  113.     Trial  of  Surratt,  pp.  377,  378. 

2  Trial  of  Surratt,  pp.  385,  386. 

3  Trial  Conspirators,  pp.  113,  114,  and  Trial  Surratt,  383,  384. 


THE    CASE    OF  MRS.    SURRATT.  197 

had  sold  his  horse  and  buggy,  but  he  gave  him  ten  dollars  with 
which  to  procure  one.1  As  they  were  on  their  way  down  they 
met  Mrs.  Surratt's  tenant,  Lloyd,  on  the  road,  when  Mrs.  Surratt 
requested  Wiechmann  to  stop.  Lloyd,  recognizing  her,  got  out  of 
his  buggy  and  came  to  the  side  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  buggy,  on  which 
she  was  sitting,  when  she  leaned  her  head  out  toward  him  and 
conversed  with  him  in  so  low  a  tone  that  Wiechmann  did  not  hear 
what  was  said;  "  but  Lloyd  testified  that  she  told  him  to  "have 
those  shooting-irons  handy,  as  they  would  be  called  for  before 
long."  The  shooting-irons  to  which  she  referred  were  the  two 
Spencer  carbines  that  had  been  carried  to  Surrattsville  some  time 
previous  by  J.  H.  Surratt,  Atzerodt,  and  Herold,  and  which  John 
H.  Surratt  and  Lloyd  had  hidden  away,  as  related  heretofore. 
Thus  we  see  that  Mrs.  Surratt  was  kept  posted  in  regard  to  every 
move  that  was  made ;  that  she  knew  that  these  arms  had  been 
deposited  there,  the  purpose  for  which  they  had  been  left  there, 
and  that  they  would  be  called  for  soon.  We  can  now  understand 
Booth's  generosity  in  furnishing  her  ten  dollars  to  pay  for  a 
conveyance  —  she  carried  his  message  to  Lloyd.  On  the  day  of 
the  assassination  she  again  got  Wiechmann  to  drive  her  down 
to  Surrattsville,  no  doubt  at  Booth's  request,  and  perhaps  at 
his  expense.  She  gave  to  Wiechmann  ten  dollars  with  which 
to  procure  a  conveyance,  and  as  he  passed  out  of  her  house  on 
this  errand  he  met  Booth  at  the  front  door,  in  the  act,  as  it  were,  of 
ringing  the  door  bell.3  When  Wiechmann  returned,  in  passing  to 
his  room,  he  saw  Booth  in  the  parlor  conversing  with  Mrs.  Surratt. 
Booth  sent  by  her  to  Lloyd,  on  this  occasion,  a  field-glass  and 
a  message  to  have  the  two  carbines  ready,  together  with  this  glass 
and  two  bottles  of  whiskey,  as  they  would  be  called  for  that  night. 
Lloyd  was  absent  from  home  when  they  arrived  at  Surrattsville, 
and  did  not  return  until  late  in  the  evening.  Mrs.  Surratt  dilly 
dallied  until  he  returned,  and  then  snatched  an  opportunity  for  a 
private  interview  with  Lloyd  in  his  back  yard,  where  he  had 

1  Trial  Conspirators,  p.  113. 

2  Trial  Conspirators,  pp.  118-119.     Trial  Conspirators,  p.  85.     Testimony  of  John 
M.  Lloyd. 

3  Trial  Conspirators,  p.  113,  and  Trial  Surratt,  pp.  391,  392. 


198  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

driven.  She  then  delivered  to  him  the  field-glass  and  Booth's 
message  to  have  the  shooting-irons,  etc.,  ready  as  they  would  be 
called  for  that  night,  as  they  were,  by  Booth  and  Herold,  about 
midnight.  Lloyd  swore  that  this  was  the  message  which  she 
delivered  to  him  during  that  interview  in  the  back  yard.1 

Can  any  one  doubt  now  that  Mrs.  Surratt  was  fully  posted  in 
every  particular  of  the  assassination  plot,  that  she  was  fully  trusted 
by  Booth  and  her  son,  and  was  in  sympathy  with  their  purpose 
and  willing  to  do  all  she  could  in  aiding  its  accomplishment,  — 
that  she  was,  in  fact,  a  co-conspirator? 

On  the  night  of  the  assassination,  about  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  a  party  of  detectives  called  at  Mrs.  Surratt's  house  for 
the  purpose  of  searching  it  to  see  whom  they  could  find  there, 
and  demanded  admittance.  When  informed  of  their  visit  and  the 
purpose  of  it  by  Wiechmann,  she  said,  "  For  God's  sake  let  them 
in.  I  have  been  expecting  the  house  to  be  searched." :  How 
many  people  in  Washington  were  expecting  detectives  to  come 
that  night  to  search  their  houses?  Not  one  who  was  innocent  of 
crime.  Two  nights  later  the  inmates  of  this  house  — Mrs.  Surratt, 
her  daughter,  and  Miss  Fitzpatrick  —  were  put  under  arrest  by  the 
military  police ;  and  whilst  they  were  waiting  for  a  conveyance  at 
near  the  hour  of  midnight  the  assassin  Payne  rang  the  door  bell, 
and  was  taken  in  and  placed  under  arrest  by  the  officer  in  charge. 
When  Mrs.  Surratt  was  confronted  by  Payne  she  held  up  her  hand 
and  solemnly  said,  "  Before  God  I  do  not  know  him,  and  never 
saw  him."  2  It  will  be  remembered  that  he  had  within  the  last 
three  weeks  to  that  time  stayed  in  her  house  for  three  days  and 
nights,  and  he  was  a  man  of  such  marked  personality  that  he  could 
not  have  been  so  easily  forgotten.  The  defense,  in  her  case, 
attempted  to  account  for  this  by  an  alleged  infirmity  of  sight,  but 
they  were  unable  to  establish  by  testimony  any  infirmity  of  sight 
beyond  what  is  common  to  her  age  of  about  forty-five.4  It  will 
be  remembered  that  Payne  had  been  hiding  and  skulking  for  three 

1  Conspiracy  Trial,  pp.  85,  etc. 

2  See  supplemental  affadavit  of  L.  J.  Wiechmann,  and  Trial  of  Surratt,  p.  394. 

3  Trial  Conspirators,  pp.   1 21,  122. 

4  Conspiracy  Trial.     Testimony  for  the  defense  and  testimony  in  rebuttal,  pp.  132, 
139  inclusive. 


THE    CASE    OF  MRS.    SURRATT.  199 

days  and  nights,  and  of  all  the  houses  in  Washington  her's  was  the 
only  one  to  which  he  felt  that  he  could  go  and  entrust  the  secret 
of  his  presence. 

He  could,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed, 
only  have  given  this  confidence  to  a  co-conspirator.  Having  now 
given  a  brief  synopsis  of  the  testimony  on  which  Mrs.  Surratt 
was  found  guilty  by  the  Commission,  it  will  be  in  order  for  my 
readers  to  form  their  o\vn  conclusions  as  to  her  guilt  or  innocence. 
The  writer  only  desires  to  say  that  additional  testimony  going  to 
show  the  justice  of  the  finding  of  the  Commission  in  her  case 
came  out  incidentally  on  the  trial  of  John  H.  Surratt,  and  will 
also  be  found  in  the  affidavit  of  L.  J.  Wiechmann,  made  after  the 
military  trial,  in  which  he  recounts  a  number  of  circumstances  that 
had  escaped  his  memory  when  on  the  witness  stand,  and  which 
recurred  to  him  in  his  subsequent  reflections  on  the  case.  The 
testimony  of  Sergeants  Dye  and  Cooper,  given  on  the  trial  of  Sur 
ratt,  was  that  in  passing  Mrs.  Surratt's  house  about  ten  minutes 
after  the  murder,  a  lady  which  Dye  (having  seen  Mrs.  Surratt  at 
the  military  trial)  believed  to  have  been  her,  raised  a  window,  and 
thrusting  her  head  out,  asked  them  what  was  wrong  down  town.' 

Here  wre  have  her  sitting  in  her  parlor  at  about  twenty-five  min 
utes  after  ten  o'clock  waiting  anxiously  to  hear  some  news.  There 
was  as  yet  no  excitement  on  the  street  to  awaken  curiosity.  These 
two  soldiers  believed  they  were  the  first  persons  to  pass  that  house 
after  the  assassination  ;  the  street  was  entirely  quiet ;  as  they  passed 
along  they  met  two  policemen  shortly  after  passing  the  house  54 1  „ 
where  Mrs.  Surratt  lived,  who  had  not  yet  heard  the  news;  yet 
here  was  a  woman  expecting  to  hear  some  news ;  who  hailed  the 
first  .passers-by  after  the  fatal,  and  evidently  appointed,  hour  to 
inquire  what  was  wrong  down  town.  It  was  also  proven  by  a 
servant  of  good  character,  Susan  Ann  Jackson,  that  she  had  on 
that  night  served  supper  in  the  dining-room,  after  the  family  and 
boarders  had  left,  to  a  man  whom  Mrs.  Surratt  called  her  son,  and 
whom  this  witness  identified  as  the  prisoner  at  the  bar.2  We  can 
now  see  w;hy  she  was  anxiously  awaiting  the  news. 

1  Trial  of  Surratt,  pp.  136,  137,  and  pp.  1 86,  187,  188. 
>2  Trial  of  Surratt,  pp.  163,  164,  ijj. 


200  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

On  the  trial  of  Surratt  a  good  deal  of  the  testimony  introduced 
to  show  the  existence  of  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate  the  President, 
and  that  the  prisoner  was  a  member  of  this  conspiracy,  implicated 
his  mother  in  it  equally  with  himself.  Most  of  the  witnesses  that 
had  been  brought  before  the  Commission  to  prove  the  existence 
of  such  a  conspiracy,  and  that  Mary  E.  Surratt  was  an  active 
member  of  it,  were  again  produced  on  this  trial.  As  the  witnesses 
Lloyd  and  Wiechmann  were  the  most  important  of  these,  their 
testimony  being  completely  conclusive  of  the  guilt  both  of  the 
the  prisoner  and  his  mother,  great  efforts  were  made  to  discredit, 
especially,  the  testimony  of  Wiechmann  ;  but  this  could  not  be 
done  by  any  of  the  methods  known  to  the  law.  He  stood  the  test 
of  every  effort  and  came  out  unscathed  from  a  bitter  and  most 
hostile  cross-examination  that  occupied  a  day  and  a  half.  Every 
effort  was  made  to  make  him  contradict  himself  as  to  his  present 
testimony  in  chief,  as  also  to  his  testimony  given  two  years  before 
at  the  military  trial,  but  without  avail.  No  false  witness  could 
possibly  have  come  out  of  such  a  fiery  ordeal  unscathed.  Truth 
is  always  consistent  with  itself,  and  one  truth  is  always  consistent 
with  every  other  correlated  truth,  and  for  this  reason  a  witness 
that  keeps  the  truth  can  never  be  entrapped. 

He  was  contradicted,  it  is  true,  by  negative  testimony  as  to 
some  points  in  his  evidence.  Persons  who  were  in  the  same  room 
with  him  at  the  time  that  certain  declarations  were  made  to  which 
he  testified  swore  that  they  did  not  hear  them.  But  such  testi 
mony  is  of  no  value.  If  one  person  in  company  with  many  others 
in  a  room  were  to  swear  that  he  heard  the  clock  strike,  his  testi 
mony  as  to  that  fact  could  not  be  discredited  by  that  of  all  the 
others  swearing  that  they  did  not  hear  it  strike.  Positive  testi 
mony  cannot  be  overthrown,  or  even  shaken,  by  negative.  Wit 
nesses  were  also  brought  to  prove  that  he  had  made  different 
statements,  and  some  to  prove  that  he  had  virtually  admitted  that 
he  had  testified  falsely  as  to  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  that  he  had  been 
held  under  duress  by  certain  officers  of  the  government  and 
required  to  state  in  his  testimony  what  they  dictated  to  him. 
These  efforts  also  proved  failures,  as  a  close,  scrutinizing  cross- 
examination  made  it  apparent  that  these  witnessess  had  been  sub- 


THE    CASE    OF  MRS.    SURRATT.  2OI 

orned,  and  were  delivering  a  cooked-up  testimony.  After  every 
effort  had  been  made  that  could  be  devised  by  the  ingenuity  of 
counsel,  Wiechmann  stood  before  the  court,  the  jury,  and  the 
country,  as  an  honest,  conscientious,  truthful  man.  He  was  also 
a  man  of  superior  talent,  education,  and  intelligence.  In  short,  he 
established  a  character  that  must  challenge  the  admiration  of  every 
candid  mind. 

The  attempt  was  also  made  to  overthrow'  Lloyd's  testimony, 
but  without  success.  His  testimony  was  assailed  principally  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  drunk  when  he  returned  to  his  home  on 
that  evening,  the  I4th  of  April,  when  Mrs.  Surratt  snatched  an 
opportunity  to  get  a  private  interview  with  him,  by  going  out  to 
him  in  his  back  yard,  as  soon  as  he  drove  up,  and  there  delivering 
to  him  the  message  to  which  he  testified,  and  also  gave  him  Booth's 
field-glass.  Lloyd  himself  admitted  that  he  was  pretty  drunk  on 
that  occasion,  but  he  was  not  so  drunk  but  that  he  could  carry 
out  Mrs.  Surratt's  instructions  to  the  very  letter.  He  got  the  car 
bines  and  all  the  other  things  and  placed  them  where  they  would 
be  handy  when  called  for,  so  that  they  could  be  delivered  without 
detaining  the  parties  long  when  they  should  be  called  for.1  He 
was  also  on  hand  at  the  time  they  called,  and  ready  to  get  these 
things  for  them.  It  is  evident  Lloyd  knew  the  purpose  of  all  this. 
When  called  on  by  the  soldiers  and  detectives  who  were  in  pursuit 
of  Booth  and  Herold  the  next  morning,  he  denied  that  there  had 
been  anybody  there  during  that  night.  He  knew  nothing.  But 
when  he  found  a  chain  of  ascertained  facts  about  to  fasten  upon 
him,  in  great  fear  and  trepidation  he  made  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and 
told  all.  He  then  gave  as  a  reason  for  his  course  in  denying  all 
knowledge  of  the  matter,  that  he  knew  he  could  not  tell  all  that 
he  knew  without  implicating  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  that  he  did  not 
want  to  do  that. 

1  Trial  of  Conspirators,  p.  86.     Trial  of  Surratt,  pp.  282,  283. 


202  ASSASSINATION   OF  LIXCOLX. 

Note  and  Affidavit  of  L.    J.    Wiechmann. 

Col.   H.   L.   BURNETT,  Judge  Advocate,  Cincinnati,  Ohio:  — 

COLONEL:  — I  stated  before  the  Commission  at  Washington  that  I  commenced  to 
board  with  Mrs.  Surratt  in  November,  1864.  As  a  general  thing  I  remained  at  home 
during  the  evenings,  and  consequently  I  heard  many  things  which  were  then  intended 
to  blind  me,  but  which  now  are  as  clear  as  daylight.  The  following  facts,  which  have 
come  to  my  recollection  since  the  renditon  of  my  testimony,  may  be  of  interest :  — 

AFFIDAVIT  OF  Louis  J.  WIECHMANN. 

I  once  asked  Mrs.  Surratt  what  her  son  John  had  to  do  with  Dr.  Mudd's  farm; 
why  he  made  himself  an  agent  for  Booth?  (She  herself  had  told  me  that  Booth  desired 
to  purchase  Mudd's  farm.)  Her  reply  was,  that  Dr.  Mudd  and  the  people  of  Charles 
County  had  got  tired  of  Booth,  and  that  they  had  pushed  him  on  John.  Before  the  4th 
of  March  she  was  in  the  habit  of  remarking  that  something  was  going  to  happen  to 
"Old  Abe"  which  would  prevent  him  from  taking  his  seat;  that  General  Lee 
was  going  to  execute  a  movement  which  would  startle  the  whole  world.  What  that 
movement  was  she  never  said.  A  few  days  after  I  asked  her  why  John  brought  such 
men  as  Herold  and  Atzerodt  to  the  house,  and  why  he  associated  with  them?  "Oh, 
John  wishes  to  make  use  of  them  for  his  dirty  ^vork^'l  was  her  reply.  On  my  desiring 
to  know  what  the  dirty  work  was,  she  answered  that  "John  wanted  them  to  clean  his 
horses."  He  had  two  at  that  time.  And  once,  when  she  sent  me  to  Brooks,  the 
stable  keeper,  to  inquire  about  her  son,  she  laughed,  and  remarked  that  "  Brooks  con 
sidered  John  H.  Surratt  and  Booth  and  Herold  and  Atzerodt  a  party  of  young 
gamblers  and  sports,  and  that  she  wanted  him  to  think  so."  Brooks  has  told  me  since 
the  trial  that  such  was  actually  the  case,  and  that  at  one  time  he  saw  John  H.  Surratt 
with  three  one-hundred-dollar  notes  in  his  possession. 

When  Richmond  fell  and  Lee's  army  surrendered,  when  Washington  was  illumi 
nated,  Mrs.  Surratt  closed  her  house  and  wept.  Her  house  was  gloomy  and  cheerless. 
To  use  her  own  expression,  it  was  "indicative  of  her  feelings."  On  Good  Friday  I 
drove  her  into  the  country,  ignorant  of  her  purpose  and  intentions.  We  started  at 
about  half -past  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Before  leaving,  she  had  an  interview 
with  John  Wilkes  Booth  in  the  parlor.  On  the  way  down  she  was  very  lively  and 
cheerful,  taking  the  reins  into  her  own  hands  several  times  and  urging  on  the  steed. 
We  halted  once,  and  that  was  about  three  miles  from  Washington,  when,  observing  that 
there  were  pickets  along  the  road,  she  hailed  an  old  farmer  and  wanted  to  know  if 
they  would  remain  there  all  the  night.  On  being  told  that  they  were  withdrawn  about 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  she  said  "she  was  glad  to  know  it."  On  the  return  I 
chanced  to  make  some  remark  about  Booth,  stating  that  he  appeared  to  be  without 
employment,  and  asking  her  when  he  was  going  to  act  again.  "  Booth  is  done 
acting,"  she  said,  "and  is  going  to  New  York  very  soon,  never  to  return."  Then 
turning  round,  she  remarked:  "Yes,  and  Booth  is  crazy  on  one  subject,  and  I  am 
going  to  give  him  a  good  scolding  the  next  time  I  see  him."  What  that  "one  sub 
ject  "  was  Mrs.  Surratt  never  mentioned  to  me.  She  was  very  anxious  to  be  at  home  at 
nine  o'clock,  saying  that  she  had  made  an  appointment  with  some  gentleman  who  was 
to  meet  her  at  that  hour.  I  asked  her  if  it  was  Booth.  She  answered  neither  yes  nor 


THE    CASE    OF  MRS.    SURRATT.  203 

no.  When  about  a  mile  from  the  city,  and  having  from  the  top  of  a  hill  caught  a  view 
of  Washington  swimming  in  a  flood  of  light,  raising  her  hands,  she  said:  "  I  am  afraid 
all  this  rejoicing  will  be  turned  into  mourning,  and  all  this  glory  into  sadness."  I 
asked  her  what  she  meant.  She  replied  that  after  sunshine  there  was  always  a  storm, 
and  that  the  people  were  too  proud  and  licentious,  and  that  God  would  punish  them. 
The  gentleman  whom  she  expected  at  nine  o'clock,  on  her  return,  called.  It  was,  as  I 
afterwards  ascertained,  Booth's  last  visit  to  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  the  third  one  that  day. 
She  was  alone  with  him  for  a  few  minutes  in  the  parlor.  I  was  in  the  dining-room  at 
the  time,  and  as  soon  as  I  had  taken  tea  I  repaired  thither.  Mrs.  Surratt's  former 
cheerfulness  had  left  her.  She  was  now  very  nervous,  agitated,  and  restless.  On  my 
asking  her  what  was  the  matter,  she  replied  that  she  was  very  nervous  and  did  not  feel 
well.  Then  looking  at  me,  she  wanted  to  know  which  way  the  torch-light  procession 
was  going  that  we  had  seen  on  the  avenue.  I  remarked  that  it  was  a  procession  of  the 
arsenal  employees,  who  were  going  to  serenade  the  President.  She  said  that  she 
would  like  to  know,  as  she  was  very  much  interested  in  it.  Her  nervousness  finally 
increased  so  much  that  she  chased  myself  and  the  young  ladies,  who  were  making  a  great 
deal  of  noise  and  laughter,  to  our  respective  rooms.  When  the  detectives  came,  at  three 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  I  rapped  at  her  door  for  permission  to  let  them  in.  "For 
God's  sake,  let  them  come  in  !  I  expected  the  house  to  be  searched,"  she  said. 

When  the  detectives  had  gone,  and  her  daughter,  almost  frantic,  cried  out:  "Oh, 
ma!  Just  think  of  that  man  (John  \Vilkes  Booth)  having  been  here  an  hour  before 
the  assassination  !  I  am  afraid  it  will  bring  suspicion  on  us." 

"  Anna,  come  what  will,"  she  replied,  "  I  am  resigned.  I  think  that  John  \Vilkes 
Booth  was  only  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Almighty  to  punish  this  proud  and 
licentious  people." 

(Signed)  Louis.  J.  WIECHMANN. 

Sworn  and  subscribed  before  me  this  iith  day  of  August,  1865. 

(Signed)  CHAS.  E.  PANCOAST, 

Alderman. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

FATHER    WALTER. 

FROM  the  time  of  the  trial  of  the  conspirators  by  a  military 
commission,  and  of  the  execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt  by  the  order  of 
President  Johnson,  Father  Walter,  a  secular  priest  of  Washington 
City,  has  made  himself  conspicious  by  his  efforts  to  pervert  public 
opinion  on  the  result  of  the  trial  of  the  conspirators  by  the  Com 
mission.  Whilst  rebel  lawyers,  editors,  and  politicians  have  boldly 
assailed  the  lawfulness  of  the  Commission,  and  have  denounced  it 
as  an  unconstitutional  tribunal,  and  have  characterized  the  trial  as 
a  "  Star  Chamber  "  trial,  as  a  contrivance  for  taking  human  life 
under  a  mockery  of  a  judicial  procedure,  but  with  no  purpose  of 
securing  the  ends  of  justice,  Father  Walter  and  other  priests  whose 
sympathies  were  with  the  Southern  Confederacy  have  earnestly 
seconded  their  efforts  by  the  invention  and  circulation  of  cunningly 
devised  falsehoods.  Father  Walter  has  every  now  and  then  bobbed 
up  with  the  assertion  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  entire  innocence.  Knowing 
that  not  one  in  a  thousand  of  our  people  has  ever  read  the  testi 
mony  on  which  she  was  convicted,  he  feels  that  he  can  boldly 
assert  that  "  there  was  not  evidence  enough  against  her  to  hang  a 
cat."  He  has  also  become  bold  enough  to  state  as  facts  what  the 
evidence  shows  to  be  falsehoods.  As  an  example  of  this :  in  an 
article  in  the  "  Catholic  Review "  he  asserts  in  regard  to  Mrs. 
Surratt's  trip  to  Surrattsville  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of  the 
assassination  that  she  had  ordered  her  carriage  for  the  trip,  which 
was  purely  on  private  business,  on  the  forenoon  of  that  day,  and 
before  it  was  known  that  the  President  would  go  to  the  theatre. 
Why,  if  this  was  true,  was  it  not  proven  in  her  defense?  There 
was  no  such  testimony  produced.  The  testimony  on  this  point 
against  her  was  that  shortly  after  two  o'clock  on  that  afternoon 
204 


FATHER    WALTER.  2O$ 

she  went  up  stairs  to  Wiechmann's  room,  tapped  at  the  door,  and 
when  it  was  opened  she  said  to  Mr.  Wiechmann,  "  I  have  just 
received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Calvert  that  makes  it  necessary  for  me 
to  go  to  Surrattsville  to-day  and  see  Mr.  Nothey.  Would  you  be 
so  good  as  to  get  a  conveyance  and  drive  me  down?"  Upon 
Wiechmann's  consenting  to  do  so,  she  handed  him  a  ten  dollar 
bill  with  which  to  procure  a  conveyance.  Surely  there  is  no  evi 
dence  here  that  a  carriage  had  been  ordered  already,  as  Wiech 
mann  was  left  free  to  procure  a  conveyance  where  he  might  see  fit. 

Wiechmann  went  down  stairs,  and  as  he  opened  the  front  door 
he  saw  John  Wilkes  Booth,  who  was  in  the  act,  as  it  were,  of  pull 
ing  the  front  door  bell.  Booth  entered  the  house. 

When  young  Wiechmann  returned,  after  having  procured  the 
buggy,  he  went  up  to  his  own  room  after  some  necessary  articles 
of  clothing,  and  as  he  again  descended  the  stairs  and  passed  by 
the  parlor  door  he  observed  that  Booth  was  in  the  parlor  convers 
ing  with  Mrs.  Surratt.  In  a  little  while  Booth  came  down  to  the 
front  door  steps,  and  waved  his  hand  in  token  of  adieu  to  Wiech 
mann,  who  was  standing  at  the  curb. 

When  Mrs.  Surratt  came  and  was  in  the  act  of  getting  into  the 
buggy,  she  remembered  that  she  had  forgotten  something,  and 
said,  "  Wait  a  moment,  until  I  go  and  get  those  things  of  Mr. 
Booth's."  She  returned  from  the  parlor  with  a  package  which 
was  done  up  in  brown  paper,  the  contents  of  which  the  witness 
did  not  see,  but  which  was  afterwards  shown  to  have  been  the 
field-glass  which  Booth  carried  with  him  in  his  flight.  This  glass 
Booth  sent  to  Lloyd  by  Mrs.  Surratt,  with  a  message  to  have  it, 
with  the  two  carbines  and  two  bottles  of  whiskey,  where  they 
would  be  handy,  as  they  would  be  called  for  that  night.  Lloyd 
swore  that  this  was  the  message  delivered  to  him  by  Mrs.  Surratt 
in  the  private  interview  she  sought  with  him  in  his  back  yard  on 
his  return  home  that  evening,  and  that  in  accordance  with  these 
instructions  he  delivered  them  to  Booth  and  Herold  about  mid 
night  that  night.1  Now  let  us  see  about  the  private  business  on 
which  she  professed  to  be  going,  and  on  which  she  claimed  on  her 

1  See  testimony  of  L.  J.  Wiechmann  and  John  M.  Lloyd  on  the  trial  of  the  conspir 
ators  and  on  the  trial  of  J.  H.  Surratt.  Also  testimony  of  Trial  Conspirators,  p.  126. 


206  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

trial  that  she  went.  The  letter  from  Mr.  Calvert  was  a  demand 
for  money  that  she  owed  him,  and  was  written  at  Bladensburg  on 
the  1 2th  of  April.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  I4th  she  presented 
herself  to  Wiechmann  and  claimed  that  she  had  just  received  it. 
It  would  seem  very  strange  that  it  took  this  letter  two  days  to 
reach  her  at  a  distance  of  only  six  miles.  She  claimed  that  she 
must  go  and  see  Mr.  Nothey,  who  owed  her,  and  get  money 
from  him  to  pay  her  debt  to  Mr.  Calvert.  Mr.  Nothey  lived  five 
miles  below  Surrattsville,  and  as  she  claimed  that  she  had  just 
received  Mr.  Calvert's  letter  it  was  impossible  that  she  could  have 
made  any  arrangement  with  Nothey  to  meet  her  at  Surrattsville 
that  day.  She  did  not  meet  him  there,  neither  did  she  go  to  his 
house  to  see  him.  When  she  arrived  at  Surrattsville  she  took 
Wiechmann  into  the  parlor  at  the  hotel  and  asked  him  to  write 
a  letter  for  her  to  Mr.  Nothey,  which  he  did  at  her  dictation ;  and 
this  she  sent  to  Mr.  Nothey  by  a  Mr.  Bennett  Gwinn,  a  neigh 
bor  of  his,  who  happened  to  be  passing  down. 

Now,  in  view  of  all  these  facts,  can  any  one  see  how  her  private 
business  was  in  any  way  subserved  by  her  trip  to  Surrattsville  on 
that  afternoon?  She  could  as  easily  have  written  to  Mr.  Nothey 
from  Washington  as  from  Surrattsville.  A  postage  stamp,  a  sheet 
of  paper  and  an  envelope  would  have  saved  her  six  dollars,  the  cost 
of  her  trip,  and  would  have  served  her  business  just  as  well.  The 
truth  is  that  this  talk  of  going  on  private  business  of  her  own  was 
all  a  fabrication,  first  to  deceive  Mr.  Wiechmann  as  to  the  object 
of  her  trip,  and  then  to  be  used,  should  it  become  necessary,  in 
her  defense.  We  have  already  seen  what  her  real  business  was. 

Father  Walter  falsifies  again  in  the  article  referred  to  in  say 
ing  that  she  did  not  see  Lloyd  on  that  afternoon,  but  delivered  the 
things  to  his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Offutt.1  Both  Lloyd  and  his 
sister-in-law  testified  to  her  interview  with  him  in  his  back  yard, 
and  Lloyd  testified  as  to  what  passed  between  them  on  that 
occassion. 

It  would  seem  that  Father  Walter  is  going  on  the  theory  that 
we  have  gotten  so  far  past  the  time,  and  that  the  testimony  has 

1  See  testimony  of  John  M.  Lloyd,  Trial  Conspirators,  pp.  85,  86,  and  testimony 
of  Mrs.  Emma  Offutt,  pp.  121-125,  and  Trial  of  Surratt,  p.  281. 


FATHER    WALTER.  2O/ 

been  so  far  forgotten  that  he  can  foist  upon  the  public  any  state 
ment  that  he  may  please  to  fabricate.  We  would  kindly  remind 
the  reverend  Father  that  no  ultimate  gain  can  be  derived  from  an 
effort  to  suppress  the  truth.  Neither  can  it  be  obliterated  by  our 
prejudices.  We  may  misconstrue  facts,  but  we  cannot  wipe  them 
out  by  a  mere  stroke  of  the  pen  ;  and  a  fact  once  made  can  never 
be  recalled.  But  I  am  not  yet  done  with  this  Father.  He  pre 
faces  his  article  in  the  "Review"  with  the  statement  that  he 
heard  Mrs.  Surratt's  last  confession,  and  that  whilst  his  priestly 
vows  do  not  permit  him  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  the  confessional, 
yet  from  knowledge  in  his  possession  he  is  prepared  to  assert  her 
entire  innocence  of  this  most  atrocious  crime.  He  means  that  we 
shall  understand  that  were  he  at  liberty  to  give  her  last  confession 
to  the  world  he  could  say  that  she  then  and  there  asserted  her 
entire  innocence. 

Will  Father  Walter  deny  that  under  the  teachings  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  he  had  an  absolute  right,  with  her  consent,  to 
make  her  confession  public  on  this  point?  Nay  more,  could  not 
Mrs.  Surratt  have  compelled  him  to  do  so  in  vindication  of  her 
own  good  name,  and  of  the  honor  of  the  church  of  which  she  was 
a  member?  And  having  this  consent,  was  it  not  his  most  solemn 
duty  to  proclaim  her  confessed  innocence  in  every  public  way, 
through  the  press,  and  even  from  the  very  steps  of  the  gallows? 

Why  was  not  that  confession  made  public?  Why  was  it  not 
reduced  to  writing  and  signed  with  her  own  hand  ?  Why  has  it 
not  in  its  entirety  been  given  to  the  world  ?  Why  must  the  public 
wait  twenty-seven  years,  and  instead  of  having  the  full  confession  be 
required  to  content  itself,  in  so  great  a  case,  with  a  mere  assertion 
from  the  reverend  Father,  based  on  his  alleged  knowledge?  Aye, 
just  there's  the  rub  ! 

That  confession  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  would  have  proved  very  inter 
esting  reading,  and  might  have  let  in  a  flood  of  light  on  some 
places  that  are  now  very  dark ;  it  would,  indeed,  have  shown  how 
far  Mrs.  Surratt  was  involved  in  the  abduction  and  assassination 
plots,  and  to  what  degree  she  was  the  willing  or  unwilling  tool  of 
her  son,  and  of  John  Wilkes  Booth.  That  confession  would  have 
shown  the  object  of  Booth's  visit  to  her  on  the  very  day  and  eve  of 


2O8  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

the  murder.  It  would  have  explained  what  she  had  in  her  mind 
when  she  carried  Booth's  field-glass  into  the  country,  and  told 
Lloyd  to  have  the  " shooting-irons"  and  two  bottles  of  whiskey 
ready  on  that  fateful  night  of  the  I4th  of  April.  And  if  she  did 
not  explain  satisfactorily  every  item  of  testimony  which  bore  so 
heavily  against  her,  then  her  last  confession  was  worth  nothing. 

Father  Walter  never  had  at  any  time  Mrs.  Surratt's  consent  to 
make  her  confession  public,  and  he  dare  not  do  so  now  after 
twenty-seven  years  have  elapsed  since  he  shrove  his  unfortunate 
penitent. 

Why,  we  repeat,  did  not  Father  Walter  do  this?  He  was 
interesting  himself  very  much  in  her  behalf  in  trying  to  get  her 
a  reprieve ;  why  did  he  not  use  this  as  an  argument  with  the 
President  in  her  behalf  that  in  her  final  confession  she  asserted 
her  innocence?  Why  did  he  wait  until  the  sentence  had  been 
confirmed  by  the  President  and  a  full  cabinet  without  a  dissenting 
voice,  and  then  had  been  carried  into  execution,  before  he  put 
into  circulation  the  story  of  her  confessed  innocence?  And  why 
does  he  refer  to  his  priestly  vows  as  his  excuse  for  this  conduct, 
when  he  knows  full  well  that  having  gained  Mrs.  Surratt's  consent 
to  make  her  confession  public  as  an  entirety,  these  vows  imposed 
upon  him  no  such  restrictions?  In  vindication  of  the  Commission, 
and  also  of  the  court  of  review,  —  the  President  and  his  cabinet, 
—  we  submit  that  the  evidence  shows  her  to  have  been  guilty,  no 
matter  what  she  might  have  said  in  her  final  confession. 

Perhaps  she  had  been  led  to  believe  that  President  Lincoln  was 
an  execrable  tyrant,  and  that  his  death  was  no  more  than  that  of 
the  "  meanest  nigger  in  the  army."  Her  remarks  to  her  daughter 
the  night  her  house  was  searched  indicate  the  views  she  took  of 
the  subject.  "  Anna,  come  what  will,  I  am  resigned.  I  think- 
that  Booth  was  only  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Almighty 
to  punish  this  wicked  and  licentious  people."  To  one  who  could 
have  taken  this  view  of  the  case,  Booth's  act  could  not  have  been 
regarded  as  a  crime ;  and  she  who  rendered  him  all  the  aid  she 
could  would  feel  no  guilt.  They  were  only  co-operating  with  the 
Almighty  in  the  execution  of  his  vengeance.  On  the  trial  of  John 

1  See  supplemental  affidavit  of  L.  Wiechmann  and  Trial  of  J.  H.  Surratt,  p.  295. 


FATHER    WALTER.  209 

H.  Surratt,  Mr.  Merrick  brought  Father  Walter  on  to  the  stand  and 
asked  him  if  he  had  heard  the  last  confession  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  to 
which  the  Father  answered,  "  I  did.  I  gave  her  communion  on 
Friday  and  prepared  her  for  death." 

Mr.  Merrick  in  his  argument  before  the  jury  said :  "  I  asked 
him  '  Did  she  tell  you  as  she  was  marching  to  the  scaffold  that 
she  was  an  innocent  woman  ?  '  I  told  him  not  to  answer  that 
question  before  I  desired  him  to.  He  nodded  his  head,  but  did 
not  answer  that  question,  because  he  had  no  right,  as  the  other 
side  objected."  Now  what  was  the  object  of  all  this?  Mr.  Mer 
rick  brought  the  Father  on  to  the  stand  and  asked  him  a  question 
that  had  not  the  slightest  relevancy  to  any  issue  before  that  jury. 
He  knew,  of  course,  that  the  prosecution  would  object,  and  that 
the  question  could  not  be  answered.  It  was  a  direct  question,  and 
could  have  been  answered  by,  "She  did"  or  "She  did  not."  Why 
does  not  the  Father  answer  at  once?  He  had  been  cautioned  not 
to  do  so  until  desired,  and  so  he  waits  for  the  prosecution  to 
object  and  estop  him  from  answering  the  question.  Mr.  Merrick,, 
however,  in  his  argument  assumes  that  the  Father  stood  ready  to 
say  that,  "  She  solemnly  declared  her  entire  innocence  to  me  in 
her  last  confession,"  and  throws  the  responsibility  on  the  other 
side  for  not  getting  this  answer.  The  argument  was  this:  "You 
see  that  Father  Walte'r  stood  ready  to  testify  to  this  fact,  but  the 
prosecution  objected,  and  so  he  could  not  do  it." 

Now,  what  has  become  of  the  Father's  priestly  vows  behind 
which  he  has  always  been  hiding?  Or  was  all  this  a  mere  piece 
of  acting,  to  give  the  counsel  a  point  from  which  to  denounce  the 
government,  the  Commission,  and  all  who  were  concerned  in  visit 
ing  justice  upon  the  assassins? 

We  believe  it  to  be  true  that  the  laws  of  his  church  did  not  for 
bid  him  to  make  public,  with  her  consent  or  command,  her  last 
confession  on  this  point,  and  that  the  Father  in  making  the  state 
ments  he  does  at  this  late  day  is  simply  practicing  sleight-of- 
hand  upon  the  public.  It  is  a  very  strange  circumstance,  too,  that 
whilst  Payne,  Arnold,  O'Laughlin,  Atzerodt,  and  even  John  H. 
Surratt  admitted  their  connection  with  one  or  the  other  of  the  con 
spiracy  plots,  Mrs.  Surratt  has  not  left  one  word  or  line  after  her 


2  I O  ASSASSINA  TION   OF  LINCOLN. 

to  explain  away  the  incriminating  evidence  brought  against  her. 
The  reason  is  plain ;  she  could  not  have  explained  anything  with 
out  involving  herself  and  her  son,  and  giving  away  the  whole 
case. 

For  twenty-six  years  Father  Walter  and  his  rebel  co-adjutors 
have  kept  a  paragraph  going  the  rounds  of  the  papers,  stating  as 
a  fact  that  all  the  members  of  the  Commission  but  one  are  dead, 
and  that  they  died  miserable  deaths,  which  marked  them  as  the 
subjects  of  heaven's  vengeance,  and  that  some  of  them  perished 
from  the  violence  of  their  own  hands,  being  crazed  with  remorse. 

The  truth  is  that  at  this  writing,  April,  1892,  all  of  the  members 
of  the  Commission  are  alive  except  General  Hunter  and  General 
Ekin.  General  Hunter  lived  to  over  four  score  years,  and  General 
Ekin  to  seventy-three.  The  present  writer  is  nearly  seventy-nine 
and  is  still  able  to  vindicate  the  truth  in  the  interest  of  a  true  history 
of  his  period.  Is  it  not  high  time  that  the  American  people  should 
be  fully  informed  as  to  this  most  important  episode  in  their  his 
tory,  in  order  that  they  may  not  be  misled  by  men  who  were  not 
the  friends,  but  the  enemies,  of  our  government  in  its  struggle  for 
its  preservation  and  perpetuation? 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Now  come  the  United  States  and  challenge  an   intelligent  and 
candid  world  to  say  whether  or  not,  in  the  light  of  all  this  evi 
dence,  they  have  vindicated  their  dignity  and  honor  by  showing 
that  they  had  just  grounds  for  charging  Jefferson  Davis,  George 
N.  Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary, 
Clement  C.  Clay,  George  Harper,  George  Young,  and  others  un 
known,  with  combining,  confederating  and  conspiring  together  with 
one    John  Wilkes  Booth  and    John   Harrison  Surratt  to  kill  and 
murder  Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson,  William  H.   Seward, 
and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  with  the  intent  to  subvert  the  Constitution 
and  overthrow  the  government  of  the  United   States  in  aid  of  the 
then  existing  rebellion  and  as  a  means  of  giving  it  success ;    and 
that    further,   as    specified,   they,   together  with    John  H.    Surratt, 
John  Wilkes  Booth,  David  E.  Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Lewis 
Payne,    Mary    E.     Surratt,    Edward     Spangler,    Samuel     Arnold, 
Michael  O'Laughlin,  and  Dr.  Samuel  A.   Mudd,  did,  on  the  night 
of  the  1 4th  day  of  April,  1865,  murder  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  did 
attempt  to  murder  William   H.    Seward,   and    did    lie  in  wait   to 
murder  Andrew  Johnson,  in  pursuance  of  said   conspiracy,  and   in 
the    purpose  and   intent  thereof,  as    therein    alleged.      And    they 
further  say,  that  if,  in  the  light  of  all  this  evidence,  any  persons 
shall  feel  like  erecting  a  monument  to   the  memory  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  this  is  a  free  country ;    let  them  do  so,  and  take  the   conse 
quences  that  cannot  fail  to  result  to  their  reputation  and   memory 
in  the  minds  of  a  patriotic,  intelligent,  and  right-minded   people, 
reared    up  under  the   influences  and  advantages  of  our  free   and 
liberal   institutions  of    civil   administration,   and   of    their   uplifting 
power  and   elevating  influences  on  the  people,  who   must,   under 
these  favoring  conditions,  ultimately  reach  the  true  ideal  of  human 
development. 

211 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

FLIGHT   AND    CAPTURE    OF   JOHN    H.  SURRATT. 

THE  presence  of  John  H.  Surratt  in  Washington  City  on  the  day 
of  the  assassination  was  proven  before  the  Military  Commission 
by  a  single  witness.  This  witness,  however,  was  a  man  who  was 
personally  acquainted  with  him,  and  who  swore  positively  to  hav 
ing  seen  him  on  that  day.  His  testimony  was  given  about  a 
month  after  the  event,  and  the  circumstance  was  fresh  in  his  mem 
ory.  He  stated  the  time  of  the  day  when,  and  the  place  where, 
he  saw  him ;  described  his  dress,  the  kind  of  hat  he  was  wearing, 
etc.,  etc.  He  was  clear  in  his  statements,  could  have  had  no 
motives  for  swearing  falsely,  and  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  he 
could  have  been  mistaken.  From  the  description  given  by  Ser 
geant  Dye  of  the  man  who  acted  as  monitor,  calling  the  time  three 
times  in  succession  at  short  intervals,  the  last  time  calling  "  Ten 
minutes  past  ten,"  in  front  of  the  theatre,  it  will  be  remembered 
that  the  writer  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  John  H.  Sur 
ratt.  This  conclusion  was  verified  by  this  same  witness  on  the 
trial  of  Surratt.  Sergeant  Dye  had  taken  a  seat  on  the  platform 
in  front  of  the  theatre,  and  just  before  the  conclusion  of  the  second 
act  of  the  play  had  his  attention  arrested  by  an  elegantly-dressed 
man,  who  came  out  of  the  vestibule,  and  commenced  to  converse 
with  a  ruffianly-looking  fellow.  Then  another  joined  them,  and 
the  three  conversed  together.  The  one  who  appeared  to  be  the 
the  leader  said,  "  I  think  he  will  come  out  now,"  referring,  as  the 
witness  supposed,  to  the  President.  The  President's  carriage 
stood  near  the  platform  on  which  the  witness  was  sitting,  and  one 
of  the  three  passed  out  as  far  as  the  curbstone  and  looked  into 
the  carriage.  It  would  seem  that  they  had  anticipated  the  possi 
bility  of  his  departure  at  the  close  of  the  second  act,  and  had 

212 


FLIGHT  AND    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN  H.    SURRA  TT.  21 1 

intended  to  assassinate  him  at  the  moment  of  his  passing  out  of 
the  door.  Quite  a  crowd  of  people  came  out  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  act,  and  Booth  and  his  companions  stood  near  the  door, 
awaiting  the  opportunity  which  they  sought.  When  most  of  the 
crowd  had  returned  into  the  theatre,  and  the  would-be  assassins 
saw  that  the  President  would  remain  until  the  close  of  the  play, 
they  then  began  to  prepare  for  his  assassination  in  the  theatre. 
The  writer  concludes,  from  a  careful  consideration  of  all  the  cir 
cumstances,  that  this  was  a  provisional  arrangement,  in  case  their 
plan  to  murder  him  at  the  door  should  fail. 

Booth  and  the  ruffianly-looking  fellow  kept  their  stations  by  the 
door,  to  make  sure  of  not  missing  the  opportunity  of  which  they 
had  planned  to  avail  themselves,  whilst  the  other  stepped  up  and 
looked  at  the  clock  in  the  vestibule,  and  called  the  time.  He 
then  immediately  walked  rapidly  up  the  street.  He  returned  in 
a  few  minutes,  and  looking  at  the  clock  again  called  the  time,  and 
again  walked  away  rapidly  up  the  street.  Very  soon  he  returned 
again,  and  called  the  time  louder  than  before,  "Ten  minutes  past 
ten !  "  and  walking  rapidly  away,  did  not  return. 

Booth  had  left  the  side  of  his  companion  before  this  long 
enough  to  go  into  the  saloon,  where  he  drank  a  glass  of  whiskey, 
and  then,  as  soon  as  the  time  had  been  called  the  third  time,  went 
at  once  into  the  theatre,  and  in  less  than  ten  minutes  thereafter 
fired  the  fatal  shot.  It  is  evident  that  it  had  been  arranged 
between  Booth  and  Payne  that  the  assassination  of  Secretary 
Seward  should  be  concurrent  with  that  of  President  Lincoln ;  and 
that  a  system  of  signals  had  been  arranged,  of  which  the  man  who 
called  the  time  was  acting  as  monitor.  The  suspicions  of  Ser 
geant  Dye  having  been  aroused  by  the  conduct  of  these  three 
men,  he  naturally  scanned  them  very  closely,  and  testified  that 
he  had  a  good  view,  not  only  of  the  person,  but  of  the  face  and 
features  of  the  man  who  called  the  time,  and  had  his  image  indeli 
bly  impressed  on  his  memory.  Upon  being  confronted  by  Sur- 
ratt  on  his  trial,  he  unhesitatingly  and  positively  declared  that  he 
was  the  man.  In  addition  to  Reed  and  Dye,  who  testified  before 
the  Commission,  there  were  nine  others  who  testified  on  the  trial 
of  Surratt  to  having  seen  him  that  day  in  the  City  of  Washington. 


214  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

All  of  these  persons,  except  four,  were  personally  acquainted  with 
him,  and  could  not  have  been  mistaken,  as  they  were  able  to  give 
the  time  of  day  when,  and  the  place  where,  they  saw  him,  as  also, 
in  the  case  of  most  of  them,  to  describe  his  person,  dress,  hatr 
moustache,  etc.,  etc.,  without  any  discrepancies  in  their  testimony, 
The  other  four,  though  not  acquainted  with  him,  identified   him 
before  the  jury,  more  or  less  positively,  as  the  man  they  had  seen. 
It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  though  they  all  testified  with  more  ' 
or  less  of  particularity  in  their  descriptions  of  his  person,  his  dress, 
his  hat,  his  moustache,  and  as  to  the  time  of  day  when,  and  the 
place  where,  they  had  seen  him,  there  was  nothing  incongruous  or 
contradictory  in  their  testimony.     One  witness,  a  colored  woman, 
Susan    Ann    Jackson,   who   was    in    service    at    Mrs.  Surratt's  at 
the  time,  and  had  been  for  three  or  four  weeks  previous  to  the 
assassination,  testified  that  under  the  direction  of  Mrs.  Surratt  she 
had  made  tea  for  the  prisoner  after  the  family  and  boarders  had 
left  the   table   on   the   night   of    the  assassination,   and  that  Mrs. 
Surratt  had  said  to  her  on  that  occasion,  "  This  is  my  son,"  and 
had  asked  her  if  he  did  not  look  like  Annie.     She  said  this  was 
the  first  and  only  time  she  had  seen  him  until  she  met  him  on  his 
trial,  and  then  she  positively  identified  him  as  the  man  she  had 
waited  upon  that  night.     The  time  was  impressed  on  her  memory 
by  its  being   Good   Friday,  and   the   night   of    the   assassination. 
Several  of  the  witnesses  who  testified  to  his  presence  in  the  city 
on  that  day  also  testified   that   they  saw  him   in    company  with 
Booth,  and  one,   at  least,  with   Booth   and   O'Laughlin.     Surratt 
himself  told  his  old  acquaintance,  St.  Marie,  with  whom  he  renewed 
his  acquaintanceship  in  the  ranks  of  the  Papal  Zouaves  at  Velletri, 
in   Italy,  that  he  left  Washington  early  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th 
of  April,  disguised  as  an  English  tourist ;    and  that  he  had  a  very 
hard  time  to  make  his  escape.     As  the  trains  leaving  Washington 
for  Baltimore  on  the  morning  of  the  1 5th  were  thoroughly  scru 
tinized  by  the  police  before  being  permitted  to  leave,  it  is  uncer 
tain  whether   Surratt's   disguise   sufficed   to  get   him  through,   or 
whether  he  went  a  part  or  all  of  the  way  to  Baltimore  on  horse 
back.     There  was  some  evidence  on  his  trial  tending  to  the  con 
clusion  that  he  had  escaped   from   the  city  on  horseback.     The 


FLIGHT  AND    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN  II.    SURRATT.  21$ 

next  place  we  get  track  of  him  in  his  flight  is  at  the  railroad 
depot  at  Burlington,  Vt.,  on  the  early  morning  of  the  i8th  of 
April.  Here  he  turns  up  with  a  rough-looking  man,  no  doubt 
the  ruffianly-looking  fellow  who  was  seen  with  him  and  Booth  in 
front  of  the  theatre  on  the  night  of  the  assassination.  They  had 
crossed  Lake  Champlain  on  a  boat  that  ran  from  White  Hall  to 
Rouse's  Point,  on  the  night  of  the  I7th,  and  landed  at  Burlington, 
in  order  to  take  the  train  to  Montreal.  This  was  the  first  trip  the 
boat  had  made  that  season,  and  it  was  four  hours  late  in  reaching 
Burlington,  arriving  there  about  midnight.  They  had  to  wait  for 
the  morning  train,  which  was  due  at  four  o'clock  A.M.  of  the  i8th. 
They  requested  permission  to  sleep  at  the  depot,  and  the  night 
watchman  allowed  them  to  sleep  on  the  benches.  He  awakened 
them  in  time  for  the  train,  and  after  daylight,  when  sweeping  the 
floor,  he  found  a  handkerchief  under  the  bench  where  the  taller  of 
the  two  had  slept,  and  upon  examining  it  after  it  was  fairly  light 
found  it  marked,  "  J.  H.  Surratt  2."  At  Essex  Junction,  where 
they  changed  trains  for  St.  Albans,  these  two  travellers  made  the 
change,  and  were  found  by  the  conductor  on  his  passing  through 
the  train  standing  on  the  platform  outside.  He  asked  them  for 
their  fare,  and  was  told  that  they  had  no  money.  Surratt  did  all 
the  talking.  He  represented  that  they  were  laboring  men,  had 
been  at  work  in  New  York,  and  had  been  unfortunate  and  lost 
their  money.  He  said  they  were  now  making  their  way  back  to 
Canada,  and  were  ready  to  promise  that  if  he  would  carry  them 
through  they  would  send  him  the  fare  as  soon  as  they  reached 
their  friends.  The  conductor  reminded  them  of  the  necessity  of 
having  money  if  they  would  travel. 

Surratt  disguised  his  speech,  trying  to  use  the  dialect  of  a 
Canadian ;  but  when  he  became  excited  from  fear  of  being  put 
off  the  train  he  forgot  his  Cannuck,  and  talked  in  good  square 
English.  The  conductor  also  noticed  that  his  hands  were  not 
those  of  a  laboring  man,  and  so  concluded  that  the  men  were  traveling 
incognito.  This  was  on  the  early  morning  of  the  i8th  of  April. 
They  arrived  at  St.  Albans  for  breakfast.  At  the  table  they 
found  everybody  excited,  and  upon  Surratt's  inquiring  what  it 
meant,  his  next  neighbor  at  the  table,  an  old  gentleman,  informed 


2l6  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

him  that  the  President  had  been  assassinated,  to  which  Surratt 
replied  that  "The  news  was  too  good  to  be  true."  The  old 
gentleman  then  handed  him  a  paper,  and  on  looking  it  over  he 
saw  his  own  name  given  as  one  of  the  assassins.  He  dropped  the 
paper,  and  found  that  he  did  not  want  any  more  breakfast.  On 
passing  out  into  the  next  room,  he  heard  some  one  say  that  Sur 
ratt  must  be  in  town,  or  had  passed  through,  as  his  handkerchief 
had  been  found  in  the  street;  when,  upon  feeling  for  his  hand 
kerchief,  he  found  that  he  had  lost  it.  They  then  left  the  place  as 
quickly  as  possible,  narrowly  escaping  arrest.  He  understood 
that  his  handkerchief  had  been  picked  up  in  the  street  of  St. 
Albans,  and  no  doubt,  in  the  excitement,  the  news  had  taken 
that  shape,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  he  lost  it  at  Burlington  depot, 
and  so  the  news  must  have  been  -telegraphed  to  St.  Albans. 

It  is  not  known  how  they  traveled  from  St.  Albans  to  Mont 
real,  but  it  is  most  probable  that  they  walked  across  the  coun 
try.  We  find  Surratt's  name  on  the  hotel  register  at  Montreal, 
where  he  arrived  at  about  two  o'clock  on  the  1 8th  of  April,  he 
having  been  absent  from  that  place  from  the  I2th.  This  had 
been  to  him  an  eventful  week,  full  of  difficulties  and  hazards ;  but 
he  may  now  feel  safe,  as  he  has  reached  the  abode  of  the  chief 
conspirators,  his  employers,  and  is  ready  to  claim  his  reward. 
He  can  feel  that  he  is  in  the  midst  of  sympathizing  friends. 
But,  alas  !  a  criminal  can  never  feel  safe.  An  angry  God  is  ever 
on  the  track  of  the  guilty  conscience.  As  it  was  with  the  first 
murderer,  so  it  must  be  with  every  murderer,  —  a  fugitive  and  a 
vagabond  he  is  compelled  to  be.  He  had  hardly  recorded  his 
name  on  the  hotel  register  when  he  was  informed  that  detectives 
were  on  the  look-out  for  him,  and  he  was  at  once  spirited  away 
to  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Porterfield.  This  man  was  a  Southerner, 
who  belonged  to  Thompson's  cabal,  but  who  had  abjured  his 
allegiance  to  his  country  and  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
Queen  of  England,  and  had  thus  become  a  British  subject.  He 
knew  all  about  the  conspiracy,  and  the  means  that  had  been 
employed  to  carry  it  into  effect ;  and  was  waiting  and  watching 
anxiously  for  the  return  of  his  co-conspirators  that  had  been  sent 
to  Washington  on  their  mission  of  assassinations.  He  at  once 


F 


JOHN  H.  SURRATT. 


FLIGHT  AND    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN  H.    SURRATT,  217 

took  Surratt  into  his  house,  and  kept  him  secreted  there  for 
several  days.  Finding  the  detectives  who  were  in  pursuit  of  the 
fugitive  vigilant  and  determined  in  their  search,  Porterfield  became 
fearful  that  he  could  not  keep  his  charge  concealed,  and  so  made 
arrangements  to  get  him  into  a  place  of  greater  security. 

At  this  point  we  meet  with  a  new  element  amongst  the  Canada 
conspirators,  viz.,  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood.  Porterfield  had 
arranged  with  Father  Boucher  to  take  his  charge  in  custody,  and 
keep  him  concealed.  This  Father  was  rector  of  the  parish  of  St. 
Liboire,  a  newly-settled  place,  about  forty-five  miles  from  Montreal 
—  an  out-of-the-way  place,  and  so  a  good  place  in  which  to  hide 
him  away.  The  arrangements  had  been  made  in  advance  with  this 
Father  to  take  charge  of  Surratt,  and  keep  him  secreted  at  his 
house.  He  was  conveyed  there  by  one  Joseph  F.  Du  Tilley,  who 
seems  to  have  been  priest  Boucher's  right  hand  man.  The  strata 
gem  to  get  him  away  from  Montreal  was  as  follows :  two  carriages 
drove  up  in  front  of  Porterfield's  house  late  in  the  afternoon,  when 
two  persons,  dressed  as  nearly  as  possible  alike,  went  out  together ; 
one  of  these  got  into  one  of  the  carriages,  and  the  other  into  the 
other,  when  they  drove  away  in  different  directions.  Father 
Boucher  appeared  at  the  trial  of  Surratt  as  a  voluntary  witness 
for  the  defense,  and  without  any  apparent  sense  of  shame  con 
victed  himself,  by  his  own  testimony,  of  being  an  accomplice  after 
the  fact.  We  think  that  the  testimony  he  gave  warrants  the  con 
clusion,  also,  that  another  priest,  Father  La  Pierre,  placed  him 
self  in  the  same  category.  Both  of  these  Fathers  took  Surratt 
into  their  houses,  and  kept  him  concealed,  —  the  first  for  three, 
and  the  latter  for  two  months, — knowing  him  to  be  charged  with 
being  a  conspirator  to  the  assassination  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States. 

Father  Boucher's  parish  being  in  an  out-of-the-way  country 
place,  it  was  only  necessary  that  he  should  constantly  exercise  a 
prudent  vigilance  in  behalf  of  his  charge.  He  was  visited  fre 
quently  by  his  friends  whilst  staying  with  Boucher ;  at  one  time 
three  or  four  of  these  came  together,  and  stayed  three  or  four 
days  with  him.  The  time  was  spent  in  hunting,  sporting,  and 
revelry.  It  was  very  remarkable,  however,  that  Father  Boucher 


2l8  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

could  not  remember  the  names  of  any  of  these  friends.  Being  a 
volunteer  witness  for  the  defense,  he  could  not  give  their  names 
without  implicating  persons  whom  he  did  not  desire  to  com 
promise  ;  hence,  no  doubt,  his  convenient  Jesuitical  failure  of 
memory.  Perhaps  he  could  not  have  given  their  names  without 
injury  to  the  cause  he  desired  to  help.  He  could  only  say  that 
some  of  their  names  were  English  names,  using  the  word  English 
in  contra  distinction  from  French  or  French-Canadian,  in  which 
sense  it  implied  not  really  English,  but  American,  - —  Beverly 
Tucker  for  instance,  perhaps  Porterfield,  and  likely,  also,  La  Pierre. 
As  two  of  these,  Beverly  Tucker  and  La  Pierre,  along  with  Boucher, 
accompanied  Surratt  from  Montreal  to  Quebec,  and  did  not  leave 
him  until  they  had  seen  him  safe  on  board  the  ocean  steamer, 
"  Peruvian,"  when  he  finally  was  sent  to  Europe,  it  would  seem 
highly  probable  that  we  have  rightly  surmised  who  were  his  vis 
itors  on  the  occasion  referred  to.  Surratt  was  not  kept  in  close 
confinement  by  Father  Boucher,  but  his  safety  from  discovery 
and  arrest  was  looked  after  with  cunning  vigilance.  At  length 
the  time  came  when  it  was  thought  safe  and  advisable  to  transfer 
the  fugitive  back  to  Montreal.  This  was  effected  as  secretly  as 
had  been  his  removal  from  that  place  to  the  parish  of  St.  Liboire. 
Father  La  Pierre  now  took  him  in  charge.  He  had  provided 
for  him  a  secluded  upstairs  room  at  his  father's  house,  right  under 
the  shadow  of  the  bishop 's  window.  This  Father  had  been  a  visitor 
of  Surratt  at  the  lonely  parish  of  St.  Liboire,  and  now  took  him 
under  his  especial  protection.  He  kept  him  concealed,  and  never 
allowed  him  to  go  out  until  after  nightfall,  and  then  never  alone, 
but  always  accompanied  him.  La  Pierre  thus  kept  his  charge 
safely  from  the  latter  part  of  July  until  the  5th  of  September, 
1865.  During  all  of  this  time  he  was  visited  regularly  twice  a 
week,  on  Mondays  and  Thursdays,  by  Father  Boucher,  who  always 
remained  over  night  with  him  at  each  visit.  How  can  we  account 
for  this  great  interest  taken  by  these  two  priests  in  secreting  the 
murderer  of  the  head  of  the  greatest  nation  on  earth,  and  that 
with  a  full  knowledge  that  he  stood  charged  with  this  crime,  and 
that  a  great  reward  was  offered  for  his  apprehension?  How  can 
we  consider  them  less  guilty,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  than  Sur 
ratt  himself? 


FUG 'HT  AND    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN  IL    SURRATT.  219 

But  at  length  a  time  came  when  it  was  thought  safe  and 
advisable  to  send  him  abroad. 

Early  in  September  Father  La  Pierre  sought  an  interview  with 
Dr.  Lewis  J.  A.  McMillen,  surgeon  on  board  the  ocean  steamer 
"  Peruvian,"  which  was  to  sail  on  the  i6th  of  that  month  from 
Quebec  for  Liverpool,  and  made  arrangements  to  put  in  his  care 
for  the  passage  a  friend  of  his  by  the  name  of  McCarthy,  who, 
for  certain  reasons,  desired  to  embark  secretly  on  the  voyage. 
The  doctor  took  a  steamer  at  Montreal,  on  the  I5th,  to  join  his 
ship,  which  was  to  sail  on  the  following  day. 

Boucher  and  La  Pierre  conveyed  Surratt  in  a  covered  carriage, 
and  went  with  him  on  board  the  same  steamer  on  which  the 
doctor  had  taken  passage.  La  Pierre  was  in  disguise,  inasmuch 
as  he  was  dressed  in  citizen's  dress.  They  had  also  disguised 
Surratt  by  coloring  his  hair,  painting  his  face,  and  putting  spec 
tacles  over  his  eyes.  On  the  passage  from  Montreal  to  Quebec, 
they  kept  him  locked  up  in  the  state-room  occupied  jointly  by 
him  and  Father  La  Pierre.  When  they  reached  Quebec  and  went 
on  board  the  transport  that  was  to  convey  them  to  the  ocean 
steamer  "  Peruvian,"  in  which  they  were  to  sail,  the  doctor  was 
there  introduced  to  Beverly  Tucker,  who  had  also  felt  enough  of 
interest  in  Surratt's  case  to  induce  him  to  accompany  him  from 
Montreal  to  Quebec,  and  who  stood  in  that  relation  to  his  case  in 
the  knowledge  of  Fathers  La  Pierre  and  Boucher  that  they  could 
safely  take  him  into  their  confidence  in  their  plans  for  conveying 
Surratt  out  of  the  country.  This  trio  saw  Surratt  safely  on  board 
the  "  Peruvian,"  and  then  bade  him  good-by.  The  interest  thus 
manifested  by  Tucker  in  getting  Surratt  safely  away  confirms  the 
testimony  given  before  the  Military  Commission,  showing  him  to 
have  been  justly  charged  by  the  government  with  being  a  member 
of  the  great  conspiracy.  Before  parting  from  his  charge  Father 
La  Pierre  requested  Dr.  McMillen  to  let  Surratt  stay  in  his  room 
until  after  the  vessel  should  have  sailed. 

Surratt  is  not  an  innocent  man  carrying  a  good  conscience, 
that  enables  him  to  look  every  man  he  meets  squarely  in  the  face. 
He  is  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond,  carrying  the  weight  of  a  terrible 
crime  in  his  memory  —  a  weight  that  neither  time  nor  distance 


220  ASSASSnVATIOX   OF  LINCOLN. 

can  efface.  He  is  haunted  by  his  fears,  having  before  him  the 
vision  of  a  detective  and  of  capture;  and  so  he  skulks  and  hides 
from  the  phantom  of  an  American  detective  which  he  cannot 
banish  from  his  mind. 

The  vessel  being  now  on  her  way,  and  in  British  waters,  the 
fugitive  ventured  forth,  and  naturally  sought  the  company  of  the 
surgeon  of  the  vessel  in  whose  care  he  had  been  placed,  and 
whom  he  regarded  as  his  friend.  His  social  nature  yearned  for 
companionship,  and  all  the  more  as  a  means  of  relief  from  a 
guilty  conscience.  Does  he  now  enjoy  a  sense  of  security?  To 
him  this  is  impossible.  He  scanned  closely  every  passenger  he 
met,  that  phantom  of  a  detective  being  ever  present  to  his 
imagination.  He  sees  a  gentleman  whom  he  takes  to  be  an 
American.  He  seeks  his  friend  McMillen,  and  discloses  to  him 
his  fears,  saying:  "  I  think  that  man  is  an  American  detective." 
Upon  being  asked  by  the  doctor  what  he  had  done  that  he  should 
be  afraid  of  a  detective,  he  replied :  "  If  you  knew  all  the  things  I 
have  done,  it  would  make  you  stare."  Murder  is  a  crime  that 
will  out.  It  imposes  a  weight  of  guilt  upon  the  conscience  that 
will,  at  some  unguarded  moment,  let  the  fearful  secret  slip  through 
the  door  of  the  lips  that  are  most  firmly  closed  by  a  purpose  of 
concealment.  The  doctor  reassurred  him,  by  reminding  him  that 
he  was  on  board  a  British  ship  sailing  on  British  waters,  and  that 
he  had  nothing  to  fear  from  an  American  detective.  Surratt  then 
drew  a  small  four-barrelled  revolver  from  his  vest  pocket,  and 
remarked  :  "  I  don't  care  ;  this  will  settle  him."  The  doctor  now 
began  to  feel  a  great  interest  in  his  charge,  arising  from  the  sus 
picion  that  he  was  John  H.  Surratt.  The  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic  occupied  nine  or  ten  days.  The  fugitive  was  so  full  of 
his  terrible  secret  that  he  could  not  keep  quiet.  Every  day  he 
sought  opportunities  to  converse  with  the  doctor  privately,  and  at 
every  interview  the  history  of  his  crimes  kept  leaking  out.  He 
was  nervous,  and  constantly  haunted  by  his  fears ;  so  that  he 
could  never  hear  any  one  coming  up  behind  him  without  starting 
and  looking  around.  Amongst  his  important  revelations  to  the 
doctor  were  the  following :  that  he  had  for  a  considerable  time 
previously  to  the  assassination  been  a  bearer  of  despatches  from 


FLIGHT  AXD    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN'  //.    SURRATT.  221 

Richmond  to  the  Confederate  agents  in  Canada;  that  he  had  at 
one  time  carried  to  them  from  Richmond  thirty  thousand  dollars, 
and  at  another  time  seventy  thousand  dollars ;  that  he  arrived  in 
Montreal  the  last  time  on  the  6th  of  April,  with  despatches  from 
Davis  and  Benjamin,  thus  confirming  the  testimony  of  Conover 
and  Merritt  before  the  Military  Commission.  These  despatches 
he  claimed  to  have  delivered  to  Thompson.  After  the  military 
trial,  and  previous  to  the  trial  of  Surratt,  the  witness,  Conover, 
had  been  convicted  of  perjury;  but  this  does  not  discredit  the 
testimony  he  gave  before  the  Commission,  as  it  was  confirmed  by 
other  witnesses  who  stand  unimpeached,  and  is  here  also  con 
firmed  by  Surratt  himself  in  regard  to  one  of  its  most  important 
points.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Conover  testified  to  having 
been  present  at  a  meeting  of  the  Canada  conspirators  in  Montreal, 
on  the  6th  of  April,  1865,  and  that  John  H.  Surratt,  who  was 
present,  had  just  arrived  from  Richmond,  bringing  a  cipher 
despatch  from  Jefferson  Davis,  and  also  a  despatch  from  his 
Secretary  of  State,  Benjamin,  and  that  Thompson,  laying  his 
hand  on  these  despatches,  said :  "  This  makes  the  thing  all 
right "  ;  and  that  active  measures  were  at  once  entered  upon  for 
putting  the  assassination  plot  into  effect.  Now  Surratt  comes  to 
McMillen  five  months  later,  on  the  face  of  the  broad  Atlantic,  and 
confirms  Conover's  testimony  in  its  major  part.  He  also  related 
to  the  doctor  the  particulars  of  his  trip  to  Richmond  late  in 
March,  1865,  when  he  was  accompanied  by  a  woman,  who  by 
other  testimony  was  shown  to  have  been  Mrs.  Slater,  alias  Brown, 
the  rebel  spy  and  blockade  runner.  The  arrangement  was  made 
whilst  he  was  in  Canada  for  him  to  meet  her  in  New  York  and 
accompany  her  to  Richmond,  which  he  did,  passing  through 
Washington.  In  this  statement  the  testimony  of  Wiechmann  is 
confirmed.  Surratt  related  to  the  doctor  the  difficulty  they  had 
in  crossing  the  Potomac.  They  were  hailed  by  a  gun-boat,  and 
called  upon  to  surrender.  They  said  they  would  do  so,  but 
waited  for  the  small  boat  that  had  been  sent  to  bring  them  in  to 
come  alongside,  when  they  suddenly  arose,  poured  a  volley  into 
the  crew  of  the  small  boat,  and  then,  in  the  confusion  that  ensued, 
made  their  escape.  There  were  twelve  or  fifteen  crossing  with 


222  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

him  at  the  time,  and  all  were  armed  with  revolvers.  Having 
gotten  within  the  Confederate  lines  south  of  Fredericksburg,  they 
were  being  pushed  along  by  negroes  on  a  hand-car  when  they 
met  five  or  six  forlorn,  half-starved  Union  soldiers,  who  had  made 
their  escape  from  a  rebel  prison  and  were  striking  for  freedom. 
At  the  suggestion  of  this  wicked  woman  they  shot  them  down, 
and  passed  on,  leaving  them  lying  on  the  ground. 

He  also  related  to  the  doctor  the  plot,  at  one  time  discussed,  to 
capture  the  President  and  carry  him  to  Richmond,  but  said  it  was 
found  to  be  impracticable,  and  so  was  abandoned.  He  claimed 
that  Booth  and  himself  had  spent  ten  thousand  dollars  in  prepara 
tions  for  carrying  out  their  plot.  When  we  remember  that  neither 
Booth  nor  Surratt  had  any  means  of  their  own,  and  yet  were  car 
rying  on  an  enterprise  that  called  for  so  large  an  outlay  of  money, 
we  may  well  ask  who  stood  behind  them  and  furnished  the  funds? 

But  if  we  take  all  of  the  testimony  we  have  before  us  into  con 
sideration  we  need  have  no  difficulty  in  answering  this  question. 
Jacob  Thompson  was  the  treasurer  of  the  concern,  and  his  govern 
ment  kept  him  amply  supplied  with  means.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Clay  said,  "  We  have  plenty  of  money  to  pay  for  anything 
that  is  worth  paying  for."  After  the  assassination  Surratt  was 
in  some  way  supplied  with  money  to  support  him  for  a  year,  and 
carry  him  to  Italy.  In  regard  to  the  assassination,  Surratt  told 
McMillen  that  he  received  a  letter  from  Booth  at  Montreal,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  week  of  the  assassination,  which  was  written  in 
New  York,  calling  him  to  Washington  at  once,  as  it  had  become 
necessary  to  change  their  plans  and  to  act  quickly.  He  started  at 
once,  and  telegraphed  Booth  at  New  York  City  from  Elmira,  but 
found  that  he  had  already  gone  to  Washington.  In  regard  to  his 
escape  from  Washington  after  the  assassination,  he  related  all  of 
the  incidents  that  have  already  been  given  in  regard  to  his  experi 
ence  at  St.  Albans,  the  loss  of  his  handkerchief,  his  hasty  depart 
ure  from  that  place,  etc.,  etc. 

Every  day  during  the  voyage,  he  was  filling  McMillen's  ears  with 
these  stories,  and  as  they  neared  the  end  of  the  voyage  he  began 
to  revolve  in  his  mind  whether  he  would  land  on  the  Irish  coast  or 
go  on  to  Liverpool.  He  asked  McMillen  which  he  had  better  do, 


FLIGHT  AXD    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN  If.    SURRATT.  22$ 

but  McMillen,  who  must  have  known  by  this  time  who  this 
McCarthy  was,  declined  to  give  him  any  advice.  Surratt  finally 
said  he  would  go  on  to  Liverpool,  but  could  not  dismiss  from  his 
mind  the  fear  that  he  might  there  meet  a  detective  awaiting  his 
arrival.  Pulling  out  his  revolver,  he  said,  "  If  he  did,  this  would 
settle  him."  Upon  McMillen  making  the  reply  that  "  they  would 
make  short  work  of  it  with  him  in  England  if  he  should  do  such  a 
thing  as  that,"  he  said,  "It  is  for  that  very  reason  I  would  do  it,  for 
I  would  rather  be  hung  by  an  English  than  a  Yankee  hangman, 
and  I  know  I  would  be  hung  should  I  be  taken  back  to  the 
United  States."  Upon  sighting  the  coast  of  Ireland  he  exclaimed, 
"  Here  is  a  foreign  country  at  last !  I  only  wish  that  I  may  live 
two  years  to  go  back  to  the  United  States  and  serve  Andy  Johnson 
as  we  served  Lincoln." 

When  the  "  Peruvian  "  was  about  to  land  her  passengers  and 
mail  at  an  Irish  port,  Surratt  sent  for  McMillen,  and  upon  the  latter 
expressing  surprise  at  finding  him  dressed,  and  prepared  to  land, 
saying  that  "  he  thought  he  had  concluded  to  go  on  with  them  to 
Liverpool,"  Surratt  replied,  "that  he  had  thought  the  matter  over 
carefully,  and  had  concluded  that  it  would  be  safer  for  him  to  land 
there,  as  it  was  then  nearly  midnight."  McMillen  then  said  to  him, 
"  You  have  been  telling  me  a  great  many  things,  and  I  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  name  by  which  you  were  introduced  to 
me  is  not  your  true  name.  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  tell  me  who 
you  are?"  The  fugitive  then  whispered  in  his  ear,  "  I  am  Surratt." 
He  then  asked  the  doctor  to  send  for  the  barkeeper,  and  before 
leaving  the  ship  drank  so  freely  of  brandy  that  the  doctor  found 
it  necessary  to  request  the  chief  officer  at  the  gangway  to  take  him 
by  the  arm  and  see  him  safely  on  shore.  On  the  Wednesday  fol 
lowing,  Surratt  called  on  the  doctor  at  his  boarding  house  in  Birk- 
enhead,  opposite  the  city  of  Liverpool,  and  requested  him  to  go 
over  with  him  to  the  city  to  find  a  house  to  which  he  had  been 
directed  to  go.  The  doctor  had,  on  the  previous  day  (which  was 
the  day  after  the  "  Peruvian  "  had  landed  in  Liverpool),  visited  the 
Vice-Consul  of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Wildings,  and  made  a  sworn 
statement  of  the  facts  that  Surratt  had  revealed  to  him,  his  purpose 
being  to  aid  the  United  States  in  securing  his  arrest.  He  told  the 


224  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

Vice-Consul  that  he  was  only  making  a  partial  statement  of  Surratt's 
confessions  during  the  voyage,  deeming  it  only  important  that  the 
government  should  be  informed  of  Surratt's  arrival  in  Liverpool. 
The  doctor  testified,  on  Surratt's  trial,  that  Mr.  Wilding  told  him 
that  he  had  been  informed  by  Mr.  Adams,  the  American  Minister 
at  London,  that  the  government  was  not  going  to  prosecute  Surratt ; 
that  it  hadn't  anything  against  him. 

Of  all  this  Surratt  was  ignorant,  and  the  doctor  went  with  him, 
as  requested,  across  the  river  from  Birkenhead  to  Liverpool,  and 
finding  a  cab,  gave  the  driver  directions  where  to  take  him,  and 
then  parted  from  him.  Surratt  visited  him  again  before  the  doctor 
started  on  the  return  voyage,  and  requested  him  to  see  a  party 
in  Montreal,  and  bring  him  some  money.  The  doctor  did  as  re 
quested,  but  the  person  on  whom  he  was  requested  to  call  said 
he  had  no  money  for  him.  The  rebellion  had  collapsed ;  the  plot 
had  failed  of  its  purpose,  as  it  had  also  failed  in  part  of  its  fulfill 
ment  ;  and  now  Surratt  was  to  suffer  the  fate  of  Hyams  —  be 
shaken  off  and  disowned.  On  the  doctor's  return  to  Liverpool 
Surratt  called  on  him,  but  only  to  learn  that  there  was  no  money 
for  him.  This  was  the  last  time  that  McMillen  saw  him  until  he 
saw  him  on  his  trial. 

Surratt  is  next  found  in  Italy,  in  the  army  of  the  Pope,  where 
he  had  enlisted  as  a  soldier  in  the  ninth  company  of  Zouaves 
about  the  middle  of  April,  1866.  He  had  found  friends  after  his 
escape  from  Washington,  who  had  supported  him,  kept  him 
secreted,  watched  over  his  safety,  planned  his  trip  from  Mon 
treal  to  Italy,  and  furnished  him  money  for  the  expenses  of  his 
journey ;  friends  who,  no  doubt,  were  accomplices  before,  as 
well  as  after,  the  fact,  for  we  find  them  waiting  and  watching  for 
his  return  to  Montreal  after  the  assassination,  and  ready  to  hurry 
him  off  into  seclusion.  He  was  to  them  a  stranger;  only  known 
to  them  as  a  fugitive  from  his  country,  charged  with  the  highest 
crime  that  a  man  could  commit,  —  a  blow  at  the  nation's  life,  by 
murdering  the  nation's  head,  —  a  crime  against  liberty  and  hu 
manity.  These  could  not  have  been  his  friends  for  mere  personal 
reasons,  but  from  sympathy  in  the  general  purpose  of  this  great 
crime,  —  the  subversion  of  our  free  institutions. 


FLIGHT  AND    CAPTURE    OF  JOHN  H.    SURRATT.  22$ 

Certainly  he  may  now  feel  safe,  being  hid  away  under  the  alias' 
of  Watson,  in  the  ranks  of  the  Papal  Zouaves,  in  the  town  of  Vel- 
letri,  in  Italy,  forty  miles  from  Rome.  But  no  !  Here  he  meets- 
Henry  Benjamin  St.  Marie,  an  old  acquaintance  of  his,  and  now 
a  fellow-soldier  in  his  company. 

About  the  i8th  or  iQth  of  June,  1866,  during  an  afternoon's 
walk,  he,  in  his  confidences  with  his  old  acquaintance,  tells  of  the 
events  of  the  I4th  of  April,  1865,  and  of  the  difficulty  he  had  in- 
making  his  escape  from  Washington  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th. 
He  said  he  left  disguised  as  an  English  traveler  and  succeeded  in 
making  his  way  out. 

The  American  Consul  was  informed  of  his  whereabouts,  and 
upon  the  matter  being  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  Pope  through 
Cardinal  Antonelli,  an  order  was  issued  for  his  arrest  and  delivery 
to  the  United  States  authorities.  He  was  thus  arrested  by  his 
comrades  in  the  service,  and  kept  under  guard,  but  succeeded 
in  making  his  escape  from  his  guards  (if  we  may  believe  the 
story),  by  making  a  bold  dash  down  a  precipice,  at  the  risk 
of  his  life.  Having  thus  escaped  he  made  his  way  to  Naples,  and 
thence  to  Alexandria,  in  Egypt.  What  must  have  been  his  sur 
prise  on  reaching  the  latter  place  to  find  an  officer  awaiting  his 
arrival,  and  ready  to  make  him  a  prisoner.  He  was  put  in  chains, 
placed  on  board  the  United  States  man-of-war  ship  "  Swatara," 
and  brought  back  to  Washington,  where  he  was  held  to  answer 
for  his  crime. 


PART  II. 

REVIEW  OF   THE   TRIAL  OF  JOHN   H.  SURRATT. 


227 


CHAPTER  I. 

INDICTMENT   AND    TRIAL. 

ON  the  4th  day  of  February,  1867,  the  grand  jury  for  the 
county  of  Washington,  District  of  Columbia,  found  an  indict 
ment  against  John  H.  Surratt  for  the  murder  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  indictment  contained  four  counts.  The  first  count 
charged  him  with  the  murder  of  one  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the 
county  of  Washington,  District  of  Columbia,  on  the  i/j-th  day  of 
April,  1865.  The  second  count  charged  that  John  H.  Surratt 
and  John  Wilkes  Booth  did,  on  the  I4th  day  of  April,  1865,  make 
an  assault  upon  one  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  county  and  district 
aforesaid,  and  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  did  murder  the  said  Abra 
ham  Lincoln. 

The  third  count  charged  that  John  H.  Surratt  and  John  Wilkes 
Booth,  David  E.  Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Lewis  Payne,  Mary 
E.  Surratt,  and  others  to  the  jury  unknown,  did,  on  the  I4th  day 
of  April,  1865,  in  the  county  and  district  aforesaid,  make  an 
assault  upon  one  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  that  he  was  murdered  by 
the  hand  of  John  Wilkes  Booth. 

The  fourth  count  charged  that  John  Wilkes  Booth,  John  H. 
Surratt,  David  E.  Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Lewis  Payne, 
Mary  E.  Surratt,  and  divers  other  persons  to  the  jury  unknown, 
on  the  1 4th  day  of  April,  1865,  at  the  county  of  Washington, 
District  of  Columbia,  did  unlawfully  and  wickedly  combine,  con 
federate,  and  conspire  and  agree  together  feloniously  to  kill  and 
murder  one  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  that  the  said  John  Wilkes 
Booth,  John  H.  Surratt,  David  E.  Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt, 
Lewis  Payne,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  and  other  persons  to  the  jurors 
unknown,  did,  on  the  I4th  day  of  April,  1865,  in  pursuance  of 
said  unlawful  conspiracy,  make  an  assault,  and  that  the  said  John 

229 


230  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

Wilkes  Booth,  in  pursuance  of  said  unlawful  and  wicked  conspiracy, 
did  kill  and  murder  one  Abraham  Lincoln. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  legal  allegations  designating  the 
crime  used  in  this  indictment  are  the  same  as  are  used  in  the 
charge  and  specfications  on  which  Surratt's  co-conspirators  were 
arraigned  and  tried  before  the  Commission,  except  that  the  word 
"  traitorously,"  there  used,  is  omitted  in  this  indictment.  This 
indictment  in  its  first  count  charged  the  prisoner  on  trial  with  the 
murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  This  was  done  on  the  principle 
that  when  two  or  more  persons  conspire  together  to  do  an  unlaw 
ful  act,  or  to  do  that  which  is  lawful  by  unlawful  means,  the 
act  of  any  one  of  the  parties  thus  conspiring,  in  pursuance  of  said 
conspiracy  becomes  the  act  of  all.  They  are  held  equally  guilty 
in  law.  To  make  this  count  good,  it  was  only  necessary  to  prove 
the  existence  of  a  conspiracy  to  do  this  murder — that  it  was  done 
by  one  of  the  conspirators,  and  that  the  person  indicted  was  a 
member  of  said  conspiracy  at  the  time  the  murder  was  committed, 
and  that  he  aided  and  abetted  and  performed  his  part,  whatever 
that  might  be,  in  accomplishing  the  object  of  the  conspiracy. 
The  second  count  charges  that  Surratt  and  Booth  murdered 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  that  the  murder  was  actually  accomplished 
by  the  hand  of  Booth.  This  implies  that  they  acted  together  for 
the  accomplishment  of  the  crime  and  would  be  made  good  only 
by  proving  the  presence  of  John  H.  Surratt  at  the  time  and  place 
of  its  commisson,  and  that  he  was  there  aiding  and  abetting  Booth 
in  the  alleged  murder.  The  third  count  simply  enlarges  the  con 
spiracy  by  designating  others  known  to  have  been  included  in  its 
membership,  alleging  also,  that  there  were  still  others  belonging 
to  it,  who  were  unknown  to  the  jury,  and  that  in  pursuance  of  its 
object  and  purpose  the  murder  was  done  by  the  hand  of  one  of 
its  members. 

The  fourth  count  more  distinctly  and  emphatically  alleges  the 
combining,  confederating,  conspiring,  and  agreeing  together  of 
these  persons  to  do  this  murder,  and  that  it  was  so  done  by  one 
of  its  members,  viz.,  Booth.  This  would  require  proof  to  be 
made  of  such  combination  and  agreeing  together  to  commit  this 
crime  on  the  part  of  the  persons  named  in  the  indictment;  that 


INDICTMENT  AND   TRIAL.  2$l 

the  crime  was  perpetrated,  and  that  the  prisoner  was  a  member  of 
said  conspiracy  at  the  time  of  its  perpetration.  It  will  be 
remarked  that  in  addition  to  the  word  "  traitorously,"  used  in  the 
charge  and  specifications  against  the  members  of  this  conspiracy 
who  were  tried  before  the  Commission,  the  political  purpose  of 
the  conspiracy,  as  there  alleged,  is  here  omitted. 

The  real  purpose  of  the  conspiracy  was  to  aid  the  existing 
rebellion  in  its  purpose  and  effort  to  overthrow  the  govern 
ment  by  assassinating  the  President,  Vice-President,  Secretary  of 
State,  and  the  general  in  command  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States. 

The  parties  tried  before  a  military  commission  were  tried  under 
the  laws  of  war,  during  a  state  of  war,  and  were  brought  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  a  military  tribunal  because  they  were  secret 
active  enemies  of  the  government,  and  were  engaged  in  an  effort 
to  aid  the  rebellion.  This  required  that  the  word  traitorously 
should  be  used,  and  that  the  treasonable  purpose  of  the  con 
spiracy  should  be  alleged.  This  member  of  the  conspiracy 
was  indicted  for  his  participation  in  this  crime  ;  but  he  had  made 
good  his  escape,  and  had  not  been  brought  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  authorities  that  could  hold  him  to  account  until  long  after 
the  rebellion  had  been  suppressed,  and  peace  had  been  declared  ; 
and  under  the  political  policy  which  had  been  adopted  by  the 
government  in  dealing  with  the  question  of  treason  and  traitors  in 
connection  with  the  war,  he  could  only  be  indicted  for  his  crime, 
as  it  was  a  violation  of  civil  law.  Hence  these  omissions  in 
framing  this  indictment. 

The  case  is  unique  in  the  history  of  American  jurisprudence. 
A  number  of  his  co-conspirators  had  been  tried  before  a  military 
commission  under  an  arraignment  that  fully  set  forth,  not  only  the 
crime  of  murder  and  a  conspiracy  to  murder,  but  also  the  fact 
that  it  involved  much  more  than  the  mere  killing  of  a  man  —  a 
private  individual  —  that  it  was  a  conspiracy  to  murder  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  a  treasonable  conspiracy  to  sub 
vert  the  government.  It  was  a  blow  aimed  at  the  nation's  life. 
He  who  murders  the  humblest  citizen  sets  at  naught  God's  image 
impressed  on  man  at  his  creation,  and  so  commits  a  crime  not 


232 


ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 


only  against  a  fellow  man  and  a  crime  against  society,  but  a 
crime  against  God.  When  Noah  became  the  new  head  and  pro 
genitor  of  the  race  after  the  flood,  God,  who  had  just  destroyed 
the  world  of  mankind  because  they  had  filled  the  world  with 
violence  and  blood,  gave  this  law:  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood 
t>y  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed  ;  for  in  tJie  image  of  God  created 
.he  him."  God  is  also  the  author  of  civil  government,  as  we  read 
in  the  thirteenth  of  Romans:  "  Let  every  soul  be  subject  to  the 
higher  powers,  for  there  is  no  power  but  of  God.  The  powers 
that  be  are  ordained  of  God."  Here  we  learn  that  civil  government 
is  the  ordinance  of  God  ;  and  so  he  who  assassinates  a  ruler,  not 
only  sets  at  naught  God's  image  in  man,  but  despises  his 
ordinance  for  the  welfare,  protection,  and  peace  of  society. 

This  treasonable  aspect  of  his  crime,  although  it  could  not,  for 
the  reasons  stated,  be  embraced  in  his  indictment,  yet,  as  we 
shall  see,  was  a  matter  of  which  the  court  and  jury  could  take 
judicial  cognizance. 

Here  we  have  a  man  on  trial  for  participation  in  the  murder  of 
a  President ;  yet,  in  his  indictment,  he  is  only  charged  with 
the  murder  of  one  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  fellow  conspirators 
had  been  convicted  of  murdering  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of 
the  United  States,  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  armies  and 
navy  of  the  United  States,  and  of  attempting  to  kill  William  H. 
Seward,  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States,  and  lying  in  wait 
to  kill  Andrew  Johnson,  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  and 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  commander  in  the  field  of  the  armies  of  the 
United  States,  for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing  the  government  of 
the  United  States  in  aid  of  the  existing  rebellion.  Under  this 
charge  they  had  been  condemned  and  some  of  them  executed. 
This  was  the  result  of  a  military  trial  in  time  of  war. 

This  trial  had  been  denounced  by  every  rebel  sympathizer  in 
the  land.  Great  lawyers  and  statesmen  had  argued  with 
vehemence  that  these  assassins  had  been  tried  by  an  unconstitu 
tional  tribunal.  The  dead  President  had  been  denounced  as  a 
tyrant,  and  usurper  of  authority ;  one  who  had  trampled  under 
foot  the  Constitution  he  had  sworn  to  protect  and  defend  by  pro 
claiming  martial  law,  and  suspending  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus; 


INDICTMENT   AND    TRIAL.  233 

and  even  in  prosecuting  a  war  to  compel  rebellious  States  to 
submit  to  the  lawful  authority  of  the  government,  and  now  they 
would  tie  up  the  hands  of  the  government  by  insisting  that  it  could 
only  try  these  traitorous  assassins,  constitutionally,  before  a  civil 
court.  The  country  stood  divided  on  this  contention,  just  as  it  did  on 
the  issues  of  the  war,  and  partisan  feeling  ran  as  high  in  this  discus 
sion  as  it  did  on  the  right  of  secession  or  the  right  of  the  govern 
ment  to  compel  submission  to  its  authority. 

The  sophistry  of  this  reasoning,  when  applied  to  a  time  of  war, 
was  made  apparent  by  the  results  of  this  trial  of  John  H.  Surratt 
before  a  civil  court,  in  time  of  peace.  No  government  could  pro 
tect  itself  under  such  a  construction  of  the  Constitution,  because 
no  government  could  ever  convict  a  traitorous  assassin  before  a 
jury  made  up  of  its  enemies  as  well  as  its  friends. 

This  trial  necessarily  aroused  the  passions  and  prejudices 
engendered  by  the  war  that  gave  occasion  for  the  crime  of  the 
prisoner,  and  could  not  be  conducted  on  a  strictly  judicial  and 
legal  basis.  It  was  just  as  impossible  now,  almost  two  years  after 
the  close  of  the  war,  as  it  would  have  been  at  the  time  of  the  trial 
by  a  military  commission  of  Surratt's  fellows  in  crime ;  and  a  con 
viction  by  a  jury  in  a  civil  court  was  just  as  impossible  now  as  it 
would  have  been  then  because  a  jury  of  partisans  embracing  those 
of  both  sides  politically  can  never  be  expected  to  come  to  an 
agreement  in  a  case  that  appeals  to  their  partisan  feelings.  This 
case  was  unique  then,  because  it  was  the  first  case  of  a  man  on  trial 
before  a  civil  court  for  the  murder  of  the  civil  head  of  the  nation, 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  although  since  that  time 
another  has  been  tried,  convicted,  and  executed,  for  the  murder  of 
a'  President,  the  case  of  Surratt  is  still  unique  in  this,  that  his  crime 
was  overshadowed  by  a  higher  crime  out  of  which  it  grew  —  the 
crime  of  treason  —  of  being  engaged  in  a  treasonable  conspiracy 
to  overthrow  his  government,  and  yet  the  circumstances  surround 
ing  the  case  were  such  that  this  could  not  be  alleged  in  the  indict 
ment,  but  were  of  such  a  nature  that  this  phase  of  his  crime  could 
not  be  excluded  from  view. 

On  the  day  appointed  for  the  trial  of  John  H.  Surratt  a  very 
large  number  of  people  asssembled,  and  all  were  deeply  interested 


234  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

in  his  case.  The  court  house  was  crowded,  and  it  was  remarked  by 
a  most  intelligent  observer  that  the  appearance  and  spirit  of  the 
crowd  wore  more  of  the  air  of  a  political  convention  than  that  of 
men  assembled  to  participate  in,  and  witness,  the  solemn  scene  of  a 
fellow-being  on  trial  for  his  life. 

The  trial  was  before  Judge  Fisher  of  the  Criminal  Court  of  the 
county  of  Washington,  and  District  of  Columbia,  a  man  of  great 
legal  ability,  sterling  patriotism,  and  high  moral  character.  The 
trial  was  a  very  lengthy  one,  and  was  hotly  contested  at  every  point 
by  counsel  for  and  against  the  prisoner.  He  was  defended  by  lawyers 
who  had  made  an  enviable  local  reputation  for  ability  in  their  pro 
fession.  The  District  Attorney  and  his  assistant  were  aided  in  the 
prosecution  by  that  pure  patriot  and  eminent  jurist,  Judge  Edwards 
Pierrepont,  of  New  York,  who  had  been  retained  for  that  purpose 
by  Attorney  General  Stanbury  and  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary 
of  State,  and  also  by  A.  G.  Riddle,  Esq. 

A  deep  partisan  spirit  was  manifested  by  the  defense  from  the 
first  opening  of  their  mouths  to  the  close  of  the  case.  Every  effort 
was  made  to  drive  the  presiding  judge  from  his  fearless  duty,  but 
without  avail.  He  stood  firm  as  the  adamantine  rock.  He  was 
not  only  well  qualified  by  his  knowledge  of  law  for  his  high  position, 
but  was  also  impartial,  honest,  and  brave  in  his  decisions  on  the 
very  numerous  questions  of  law  and  evidence  that  were  raised  by 
counsel  during  the  trial.  His  carriage  during  that  most  notable 
trial  must  command  the  admiration  of  both  friend  and  foe ; 
and  his  decisions  will  ever  command  the  respect  of  courts  and 
lawyers. 

The  loth  day  of  June,  1867,  was  the  day  that  had  been  set  for 
calling  up  this  case.  The  United  States  was  represented  by  the 
District  Attorney,  E.  C.  Carrington,  Esq.,  his  assistant,  Nathaniel 
Wilson,  Esq.,  and  associate  counsel,  Messrs.  Edwards  Pierrepont  and 
A.  G.  Riddle.  The  prisoner  was  represented  by  Messrs.  Joseph  H. 
Bradley,  R.  T.  Merrick,  and  Joseph  H.  Bradley,  Jr.  At  the  earnest 
solicitation  of  the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  Attorney  General,  and 
upon  their  representation  that  the  trial  would  not  last  more  than  a 
week,  Judge  Pierrepont  had  consented  to  assist  in  the  prosecution. 
He  had  just  taken  his  seat  in  the  convention  which  had  met  at 


INDICTMENT  AND  TRIAL.  235 

Albany  to  make  a  new  constitution  for  the  state  of  New  York  and 
in  which  he  had  been  appointed  on  the  judiciary  committee,  and 
left  his  place  there  to  take  a  part  in  this  trial.  He  was  a  Demo 
crat  in  politics,  but  loyal  to  the  government  in  its  struggle  for  the 
perpetuation  of  its  life.  He  had  filled  a  judicial  position  in  his  own 
State,  was  a  man  of  great  legal  acumen,  and  was  noted  for  his 
patriotism  and  purity  of  character. 

At  ten  o'clock  on  the  loth  day  of  June,  1867,  the  Court  said: 
"  Gentlemen,  this  is  the  day  assigned  for  the  trial  of  John  H. 
Surratt,  indicted  for  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  late  President 
of  the  United  States.  Are  you  ready  to  proceed?"  To  this  Mr. 
Bradley  responded,  "  The  prisoner  is  ready,  Sir,  and  has  been  from 
the  first."  In  this  answer  we  have  sounded  forth  the  key-note  to 
the  spirit  and  policy  of  the  defense.  That  candor  and  honesty  of 
purpose  which  always  characterize  a  judicial  frame  of  mind,  would 
have  found  their  sufficient  expression  in  the  first  clause  of  this 
reply.  The  addition  of  the  declaratory  clause,  "And  has  been 
from  the  first"  was  not  mere  surplusage,  but  had  in  it  the  distinct 
and  manifest  intent  of  boldly  assuming  in  advance,  and  in  the  face 
of  all  the  adverse  facts,  the  entire  innocence  of  the  prisoner.  The 
purpose  was  at  this  first  moment  of  opportunity  to  present  the 
prisoner  to  the  jury  and  to  the  country  as  one  who  was  only 
anxious  for  an  opportunity  to  exculpate  himself  from  all  guilt. 
The  reader,  if  he  chance  to  be  of  an  imaginative  turn  of  mind,  will 
be  able  when  he  reads  this  clause  of  the  reply  of  the  learned  counsel 
to  see  the  assumed  air  of  assurance  and  self-importance,  and  to 
hear  the  arrogant  and  confident  tone  of  voice  with  which  it  was 
uttered.  But  without  thus  giving  license  to  our  imagination,  the 
addition  of  that  clause  to  Mr.  Bradley's  reply,  when  contrasted  with 
the  efforts  of  the  prisoner  to  escape  and  evade  a  trial,  creates  an 
impression  of  a  sinister  design  that  is  calculated  to  throw  a  taint 
of  suspicion  over  all  which  is  to  follow  in  the  line  of  the  defense. 
We  shall  have  abundant  occasion,  as  we  proceed  with  the  review  of 
this  trial,  to  show  that  the  suspicion  which  has  been  thus  created  is 
fully  justified. 

John  H.  Surratt,  as  was  shown  by  the  evidence  on  the  trial,  was 
in  Washington  on  the  I4th  day  of  April,  1865,  performing  his  part 


236  ASSASSWATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

in  the  great  crime.  He  was  there  aiding  and  abetting  Booth,  and 
co-ordinating  the  agencies  employed  in  the  execution  of  the  plot, 
in  order  that  all  of  the  assassinations  embraced  in  it  might  be  simul 
taneously  accomplished.  Acting  first  as  a  counsellor  and  then  as 
monitor,  passing  rapidly  up  and  down  the  street  to  keep  himself  in 
communication  with  the  fiends  who  were  to  do  the  work ;  calling 
the  time  loud  enough  to  be  heard  at  some  distance ;  then  going  up 
the  street  to  ascertain  whether  his  warning  could  be  heard  by  Payne, 
and  the  last  time  with  a  face  deadly  pale  and  manifesting  a  degree 
of  nervous  excitement,  inseparable  from  the  commission  of  such  a 
crime,  he  called  the  fatal  hour,  "Ten  minutes  past  ten!"  and  van 
ished  from  sight.  He  has  gone,  but  he  has  left  an  image  imprinted 
on  the  mind  and  memory  of  Sergeant  Dye  that  can  never  be  effaced. 
He  now  becomes  a  fugitive  in  disguise,  and  hies  away  to  Canada  to 
join  the  hellish  clan  that  first  conceived  and  then  led  him  into  his 
crime.  Here  he  was  at  once  taken  in  charge  by  sympathising  friends, 
who  kept  him  hidden  away  for  five  months  and  then,  under  a 
disguise  and  an  alias,  sent  him  across  the  Atlantic,  and  finally  to 
Italy. 

Here  he  is  found  in  the  Pope's  army,  and  being  charged  with  his 
crime,  which  he  has  already  confessed  in  words  as  well  as  by  flight, 
is  arrested,  escapes  from  his  guards,  flies  to  Naples  and  thence  to 
Egypt,  is  met  and  arrested  at  Alexandria,  and  brought  back  to  the 
scene  of  his  crime,  and  is  now  put  upon  his  trial.  When  asked  if 
he  is  ready,  he  replies  through  his  counsel,  "I  am  ready,  and  have 
been  from  the  first."  Why,  then,  did  he  leave  the  city  of  his  home, 
his  mother  and  sister  and  all  of  his  youthful  associations,  in  the 
early  morning  of  the  I5th  of  April,  1865  ?  Why  did  he  fly  to 
Canada  disguised  as  an  English  tourist?  Why  did  he  hide  in 
Canada  for  almost  half  a  year,  and  then,  in  disguise,  and  under  an 
alias,  flee  to  Europe?  Why  did  he  escape  from  his  guards  in  Italy 
at  the  risk  (?)  of  his  life,  and  flee  to  Egypt?  Why,  if  innocent, 
did  he  flee  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  never  cease  his  flight 
until  his  way  was  hedged  before  him  and  further  flight  was  impos 
sible?  Was  it  because  he  was  innocent  and  desired  an  opportunity 
to  prove  his  innocence  to  the  world?  In  the  presence  of  all  these 
facts,  what  a  mistake  it  was  to  say,  "And  has  been  from  the  first." 


INDICTMENT   AND    TRIAL.  237 

In  how  much  better  taste  it  would  have  been  to  have  simply  replied, 
"The  prisoner  is  ready,  your  honor." 

The  District  Attorney  replied  as  follows:  "  If  your  honor  please, 
I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  announce  that  the  government  is  ready 
to  proceed  with  the  trial.  Before  we  proceed,  however,  sir,  to 
impannel  a  jury,  we  desire  to  submit  a  motion  to  the  court,  which 
motion  we  have  reduced  to  writing.  With  the  permission  of  the 
court  I  will  now  proceed  to  read  it  to  your  honor.  It  is  as 
follows :  — 

IN  THE    SUPREME   COURT   OF   THE   DISTRICT   OF   COLUMBIA. 
UNITED  STATES  AGAINST  JOHN  H.  SURRATT. 
Indictment,  Murder. 

"And  now,  at  this  day,  to  wit,  on  the  roth  day  of  June,  A.D.  1867,  come  the  United 
States  and  the  said  John  H.  Surratt,  by  their  respective  attorneys;  and  the  jurors  of 
the  jury  impanelled  and  summoned  also  come;  and  hereupon  the  said  United  States, 
by  their  attorney,  challenge  the  array  of  the  said  panel,  because  he  saith  that  the  said 
jurors  comprising  said  panel  were  not  drawn  according  to  law,  and  that  the  names  from 
which  said  jurors  were  drawn  were  not  selected  according  to  law,  wherefore  he  prays 
judgment,  and  that  the  said  panel  may  be  quashed."  This  motion,  if  your  honor  please, 
is  sustained  by  an  affidavit  which  I  hold  in  my  hand,  and  which,  with  the  permission  of 
your  honor,  I  will  now  proceed  to  read.  We  think  after  this  affidavit  shall  have  been 
read  it  will  be  found  unnecessary  to  introduce  any  oral  testimony." 

The  motion  to  quash  this  panel,  it  will  be  observed,  rests  on  two 
allegations :  first,  that  the  names  were  not  drawn  according  to 
law ;  and,  second,  that  the  names  from  which  the  jury  had  been 
drawn  were  not  selected  according  to  law.  These  allegations  were 
fully  sustained  by  the  affidavit  of  Samuel  E.  Douglas,  register  of 
Washington  City,  which  was  presented  and  read  by  the  District 
Attorney,  and  more  fully  afterwards,  upon  his  oral  examination. 
The  law  governing  the  question  was  found  in  an  act  of  Congress 
of  June  i6th,  1862,  entitled,  "  An  act  providing  for  the  selection 
of  jurors  to  serve  in  the  several  courts  of  the  District  of 
Columbia." 

Under  the  provisions  of  this  act  the  register  of  the  city  of 
Washington,  the  clerk  of  the  city  of  Georgetown,  and-  the  clerk 
of  the  levy  court  of  the  county  of  Washington,  District  of  Colum- 


238  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

bia,  was  each  required  to  make  out  a  list  of  names  of  persons 
deemed  by  him  to  be  most  suitable  for  the  duty  of  jurors,  hav 
ing  respect  to  the  exemptions  and  qualifications  specified  in  the 
act. 

The  law  required  that  such  lists  should  be  made  out  annually 
on,  or  before,  the  first  day  of  February.  The  register  of  the  city 
of  Washington  was  to  make  out  a  list  of  names  from  which  four 
hundred  should  be  selected :  the  clerk  of  the  city  of  Georgetown 
was  to  make  out  a  list  of  names  from  which  eighty  were  to  be 
selected ;  and  the  clerk  of  the  levy  court  of  the  county  of  Wash 
ington  was  to  make  out  a  list  from  which  forty  were  to  be  selected, 
and  that  such  lists  should  be  preserved,  and  any  names  that  had 
not  been  drawn  for  service  during  the  year  might  be  transferred  to 
the  list  made  up  for  the  subsequent  year. 

Having  thus  made  out  their  respective  lists,  these  officers  were 
required  to  meet  together  and  jointly  select  from  their  respective 
lists  the  number  specified  for  each  one.  The  names  thus  selected 
were  then  to  be  written  on  separate  and  similar  pieces  of  paper, 
folded,  or  rolled  up,  so  that  the  name  could  not  be  seen ;  and 
then  deposited  in  a  box  provided  for  the  purpose.  The  box  was 
required  to  be  thoroughly  shaken  and  sealed,  and  was  then  by 
these  three  officers  to  be  delivered  into  the  custody  of  the  clerk 
of  the  court  of  Washington  County  for  safe  keeping.  These  offi 
cers  were  required  to  meet  at  the  City  Hall,  in  Washington  City, 
at  least  ten  days  before  the  commencement  of  each  term  of  the 
circuit  court  or  of  the  criminal  court,  and  there  the  clerk  of  the 
circuit  court  was  to  publicly,  and  in  their  presence,  break  the  seal 
of  the  box  and  proceed  to  draw  out  the  number  of  names  required  ; 
and  if  it  was  a  grand  jury  court,  the  first  twenty-three  names  drawn 
were  to  constitute  the  grand  jury,  and  the  next  twenty-six  names 
drawn  were  to  constitute  the  petit  jury  for  that  term.  The  jury 
or  juries  required,  having  been  drawn,  the  box  was  again  to  be 
sealed  and  delivered  to  the  clerk  of  the  circuit  court. 

The  affidavit  of  Samuel  E.  Douglas,  register  of  the  city  of 
Washington,  was  offered  with  the  motion  to  sustain  its  allega 
tions.  This  affidavit  was  supplemented  by  the  oral  examination 
of  Mr.  Douglas,  under  oath.  The  affidavit  and  oral  examination 


INDICTMENT  AND    TRIAL. 


239 


developed  the  facts  that  no  such  lists  had  been  made  out  and  pre 
served  as  required ;  also  that  there  had  been  no  joint  action  of 
these  three  officers  in  the  selection  of  names,  but  that  each  one 
had  written  his  respective  number  of  names  and  deposited  them 
in  the  box,  without  exhibiting  them  to  the  other  two.  There  had 
been  no  joint  selection  as  the  law  required. 

Still  further,  the  fact  was  developed  that  these  officers  had  not 
sealed  the  box  as  required,  but  had  delivered  it  to  the  clerk  of  the 
circuit  court  to  be  sealed  by  him.  It  was  further  shown  that  the 
names  had  been  drawn,  not  by  the  clerk  of  the  circuit  court,  but 
by  the  clerk  of  the  city  of  Georgetown. 

It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  the  affidavit  and  oral  examina 
tion  of  Mr.  Douglass  fully  sustained  the  allegations  of  the  motion 
of  the  District  Attorney,  and  that  the  utter  disregard  of  all  the 
most  essential  requirements  of  the  law  could  have  easily  been 
made  to  subserve  a  corrupt  purpose.  Without  charging  fraud  in 
the  case,  we  can  easily  see  how  the  clerk  of  the  city  of  George 
town,  who  drew  this  jury,  and  who  had  no  right  to  put  his  hand 
in  the  box,  could  have  carried  in  his  own  hand  names  of  his  own 
selection  for  that  special  purpose,  and  from  this  store  to  have  drawn 
a  jury  without  taking  a  single  name  from  the  box. 

The  substance  of  the  affidavit  and  oral  examination  of  Mr. 
Douglass  having  been  incorporated  with  the  motion  of  the  Dis 
trict  Attorney,  the  defense  made  the  following  replication :  - 

UNITED  STATES     ^ 

vs.  >•  In  the  Criminal  Court  of  tlie  District  of  Columbia,  Aro.  . 

JOHN  H.  SURRATT.  J 

And  thereupon,  the  defendant  saith  the  said  motion  is  bad  in  law  and  in  substance. 
The  facts  stated  do  not  constitute  any  ground  in  law  for  a  challenge  of  the  array. 

BRADLEY  &  MERRiCK,/0r  defense. 

Mr.  Pierreponl,  —  We  join  in  the  demurrer. 

The  question  now  before  the  court  was  simply  one  of  law  and 
of  fact,  and  whether  the  facts  in  the  case,  admitted  by  all,  consti 
tuted  such  a  violation  of  the  law  as  justified  and  required  the  set 
ting  aside  of  the  array.  It  would  seem  that  it  ought  to  have  been 
easily  settled,  and  the  fact  that  the  motion  was  hotly  contested  by 
the  defense  through  a  discussion  of  three  days  continuance,  would 


240  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

seem  to  indicate  that  for  some  reason  they  had  a  special  desire  to 
have  their  case  tried  by  that  particular  jury.  The  argument  was 
opened  by  Mr.  Merrick  for  the  defense.  His  argument  was  first 
addressed  to  the  construction  of  the  statute,  and  to  the  contention 
that  the  facts  alleged  and  admitted  did  not  constitute  such  a  viola 
tion  of  the  law  as  would  justify  the  setting  aside  of  the  array. 
And  then  as  there  was  no  statute  in  regard  to  the  quashing  of  the 
panel  the  question  was  argued  on  the  principles  of  the  common 
law,  and  many  decisions  were  invoked,  both  in  England  and  in  this 
country,  to  show  that  the  failure  of  the  officers  to  comply  with  the 
law  was  not  such  as  would  vitiate  what  they  did. 

The  question  was  ably  discussed  on  both  sides,  and  ingeniously 
on  the  part  of  the  defense,  which  did  not  confine  itself  to  the 
legal  discussion  of  the  question,  but  made  it  the  occasion  for  mani 
festing  its  spirit  and  attitude  toward  the  government  by  insinua 
tions  and  innuendo.  Thus,  Mr.  Merrick  said,  "  I  hope  the  United 
States  is  looking  for  the  attainment  of  justice  in  this  case ;  I  trust 
nothing  may  be  developed  in  this  case  looking  towards  anything 
else.  I  trust  the  government  will  tread  the  high  and  honorable 
path  which  leads  to  the  attainment  of  simple  and,  I  may  add, 
speedy  justice.  And  entertaining  this  hope,  I  suggest  to  your 
honor,  whether  it  is  probable  a  jury,  against  whose  qualification 
nothing  is  alleged,  who  were  summoned  without  regard  to  this 
case,  and  before  it  was  anticipated  it  might  be  tried,  are  not  better 
fitted  to  do  justice  than  another  summoned  in  anticipation  of  the 
case,  —  a  case  not  of  an  ordinary  private  nature,  but  one  of  great 
public  interest,  in  which,  while  the  United  States  as  a  government, 
I  trust,  will  tread  in  the  highways  I  have  spoken  of,  there  are  indi 
viduals  occupying  offices  in  the  government  who  may  be  disposed 
to  tread  lower  paths  which  we  will  have  to  follow. 

"  May  it  please  your  honor,  I  shall  say  no  more  upon  this  motion 
than  to  add  that  after  the  most  careful  examination  I  have  been 
able  to  give  to  it,  the  honest  conclusion  to  which  I  have  come  is, 
that  the  ground,  probably,  upon  which  the  motion  rests,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  act  of  1853,  page  160,  10  Statutes  at  Large,  which 
act  provides  that  where  a  criminal  case  is  on  trial  in  this  court  and 
a  jury  has  been  impanelled,  and  another  term  begins  during  the 


INDICTMENT  AND    TRIAL.  24! 

progress  of  the  trial,  the  cause  shall  continue ;  but  leaves  it  exceed 
ingly  questionable  whether  unless  the  jury  is  fully  impanelled 
before  the  end  of  the  term,  the  cause  can  be  tried.  That  other 
term  begins  Monday  next,  and  unless  a  jury  in  this  case  is  im 
panelled  before  Saturday  night  it  is  questionable  whether  this  case 
will  be  tried  for  many  days  or  many  years." 

To  this  sly  insinuation  that  the  government  felt  that  it  had  an 
elephant  on  its  hands,  and  that  the  motion  was  a  dilatory  one  thus, 
made  so  early  in  the  case  to  influence  both  the  jury  and  public 
opinion,  Judge  Pierrepont  replied  as  follows :  "  They  will  discover 
before  we  proceed  much  further,  that  the  United  States  are  as 
zealous,  as  earnest,  and  as  eager  to  try  this  cause  as  the  other 
side,  and  they  will  discover  before  it  is  through  that  the  public 
mind  will  be  set  right  with  regard  to  a  great  many  subjects  about 
which  there  have  been  active,  numerous,  and  unfounded  reports. 
Since  I  have  been  here  in  this  city  for  these  past  few  days,  it  has 
been  circulated  in  nearly  all  the  journals  of  this  country  that  the 
United  States  dared  not  bring  forward  the  diary  found  upon  the 
murderer  of  the  President,  because  that  diary  would  prove  things 
they  did  not  want  to  have  known.  All  these  things  will  be  proved 
to  be  false,  and  all  the  papers,  about  the  suppression  of  which  so 
much  has  been  said,  will  be  exhibited  here  on  the  trial  of  this  case. 
We  are  anxious  that  it  should  be  proceeded  with  at  once.  It  has 
likewise  been  circulated  through  all  the  public  journals  that  after 
the  former  convictions,  when  an  effort  was  made  to  go  to  the 
President  for  pardon,  men  active  here  at  the  seat  of  government 
prevented  any  attempt  being  made,  or  the  President  even  being 
reached  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  whether  he  would  not  exercise 
clemency  ;  whereas,  the  truth,  and  the  truth  of  record,  which  will 
be  presented  in  this  court,  is  that  all  this  matter  was  brought 
before  the  President  and  presented  to  a  full  cabinet  meeting, 
where  it  was  thoroughly  discussed ;  and  after  such  discussion, 
condemnation,  and  execution,  received  not  only  the  sanction  of 
the  President,  but  that  of  every  member  of  his  cabinet.  This,  and 
a  thousand  other  of  these  false  stories,  will  be  all  set  at  rest  for 
ever  in  the  progress  of  this  trial;  and  the  gentlemen  may  feel 
assured  that  not  only  are  we  ready  but  that  we  are  desirous  of 


242  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

proceeding  at  once  with  the  case."  The  insinuation  of  Mr.  Mer- 
rick,  having  been  thus  bravely  and  fully  met,  the  defense  felt  it 
necessary  to  shift  its  ground,  and  so  Mr.  Bradley,  in  the  course  of 
his  argument,  found  another  reason  for  the  motion  of  the  prosecu 
tion  to  quash  the  panel,  which  he  artfully  put  forth  in  the  form  of 
an  insinuation  as  follows :  "  I  think  I  can  see  where  this  thing  is 
drifting.  It  is  not  delay  that  is  sought,  but  they  have  another  motive 
more  powerful  than  delay.  It  is  to  get  another  jury  in  the  place  of 
this  honest  jury  already  summoned.  Why,  sir,  the  gentleman  talks 
about  the  misgivings  in  the  public  prints.  I  do  not  know  that  he 
has  seen  what  I  hold  in  my  hand,  —  an  article  from  this  place 
denouncing  this  jury  because  sixteen  of  them  are  Catholics,  as 
they  say,  but  there  it  is  —  such  an  article  has  been  written  and 
published  in  the  New  York  Herald.  I  know,  too,  that  the  same 
article,  published  yesterday  morning,  foreshadows  the  fact  that 
these  gentlemen  were  to  come  into  court  on  the  day  they  did,  and 
make  the  identical  motion  that  they  have  submitted  here." 

Mr.  Merrick.     "And  states  the  ground  of  the  motion?" 

Mr.  Bradley.  "Yes  Sir,  states  the  ground  of  the  motion.  It 
looks  to  me  as  though  it  came  from  very  near  home." 

Mr.  Pierrepont.  "What  does  it  state  as  the  ground  of  the 
motion?  " 

Mr.  Bradley.  "There  it  is,  just  the  same  ground  precisely  as 
was  stated  here  that  it  was  not  a  lawful  panel." 

Mr.  Pierrepont.     "Oh!"  (laughingly.) 

Thus  we  get  a  glimpse  at  the  outside  pressure  that  was  brought 
to  bear  on  this  trial  by  a  constant  fusilade  of  falsehoods  couched  in 
cunningly-devised  paragraphs  that  they  might  gain  a  general  circu 
lation  through  the  press  of  the  country  for  the  purpose  not  only  of 
influencing  the  jury  in  this  case,  but  also  of  misleading  and  pervert 
ing  public  opinion. 

The  fact  brought  out  in  this  paragraph  is  somewhat  remarkable. 
It  might  have  been  a  mere  chance  that  sixteen  out  of  the  twenty- 
six  drawn  for  the  jury  happened  to  be  Catholics,  but  we  cannot 
help  feeling  a  suspicion  that  had  the  law  been  a  little  more  closely 
followed  it  might  have  been  otherwise. 

To  the  insinuation  of  Mr.  Bradley,  the  District  Attorney  replied 


INDICTMENT  AND   TRIAL.  243 

as  follows :  "I  do  not  rise  for  the  purpose  of  arguing  the  motion 
before  the  court,  but  with  the  permission  of  your  honor,  and  my 
learned  friend,  simply  to  say  a  word  or  two  in  regard  to  a  certain 
statement  in  one  of  the  newspapers  of  the  day  to  which  my  atten 
tion  has  just  been  called.  It  is  an  item  in  the  New  York  Herald, 
purporting  to  be  telegraphed  from  this  city. 

The  article  is  not  very  complimentary  to  myself,  but  as  my  friend 
is  spoken  of  in  very  high  terms,  I  am  not  disposed  to  quarrel  with 
the  writer,  for,  as  a  generous-hearted  man,  I  am  more  anxious  for 
the  reputation  of  my  friend  than  I  am  for  my  own.  What  is  inti 
mated  in  it,  I  would  not  think  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  called 
to  the  attention  of  the  court,  were  it  not  that  allusion  has  been 
made  to  it  here  by  the  learned  counsel  who  last  addressed  your 
honor. 

He  stated  that  there  was  some  reason  not  made  known  for  this 
motion  which  we  have  submitted.  I  deem  it  due  to  myself  to 
say  — 

Mr.  Bradley.  "I  beg  your  pardon  if  I  have  said  anything 
wrong.  I  thought  it  was  a  fair  retort  on  what  was  said  by  Judge 
Pierrepont." 

The  District  Attorney.  ''Notwithstanding  the  disclaimer  of  the 
gentleman  to  impute  any  wrong  motive  to  us  in  submitting  the 
motion  now  before  your  honor,  I  think,  inasmuch  as  public  refer 
ence  has  been  made  to  it  here,  it  is  due  to  my  position  before  the 
country  to  say  a  word.  I  will  here  say,  then,  that  there  is  no  one 
who  would  more  earnestly  and  sincerely  deprecate  any  appeal  to 
religious  prejudices  than  myself.  Politicians  may  speak,  think,  and 
act  as  they  please,  but  for  my  part  I  would  drive  from  the  halls  of 
justice  the  demon  of  party  spirit  and  religious  fanaticism.  I  trust 
in  God  the  day  will  never  come  when  a  judge,  or  a  jury,  will  be 
influenced  in  the  discharge  of  the  most  solemn  duty  that  can 
possibly  be  devolved  upon  human  beings  by  political  or  religious 
considerations." 

At  the  assembling  of  the  court  on  the  morning  of  the  I3th, 
Judge  Fisher  delivered  an  exhaustive  opinion  on  the  motion  before 
him.  As  it  is  somewhat  lengthy  I  shall  only  give  its  concluding 
paragraph.  "Believing,  therefore,  that  the  substantial  require- 


244  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

ments  of  the  act  of  Congress  in  this  case  providing  for  the 
selection  of  a  fair  and  impartial  jury,  have  not  been  complied  with, 
but  entirely  set  at  naught,  and  that  there  has  been  grave  default  on 
the  part  of  the  officers  whom  that  act  has  substituted  in  the  place  of 
the  marshal,  for  the  purpose  of  having  them  exercise  a  united 
judgment  in  the  selection  of  all  the  persons  whose  names  are  to  go 
in  the  jury  box,  I  am  constrained  to  allow  the  motion  of  challenge 
in  this  case.  I  do  not  consider  the  fact  that  the  present  panel 
were  improperly  drawn  by  the  clerk  of  Georgetown,  who  had  no 
right  to  put  his  hand  into  the  box,  because  the  objection  which  I 
have  allowed  lies  even  deeper  than  that.  It  is,  therefore,  ordered 
by  the  Court  that  the  present  panel  be  set  aside,  and  that  the 
Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia  do  now  proceed  to  summon  a 
jury  of  talesmen." 

Judge  Fisher  subsequently  said:  "My  order  is  that  the  Marshal 
summon  twenty-six  talesmen."  The  process  of  securing  a  jury 
from  talesmen  occupied  the  next  four  days,  and  about  two  hundred 
talesmen  were  summoned  before  a  panel  could  be  secured. 

Many  of  those  summoned  by  the  marshal  were  excused  on 
showing  sufficient  grounds ;  a  very  large  number  were  found 
disqualified  on  their  voire  dire;  and  perhaps  all  of  the  challenges, 
or  nearly  so,  to  which  the  parties  were  entitled,  were  exhausted,, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  evening  session  of  the  i6th  of  June,  that 
the  jury  was  impaneled  to  try  the  case. 

When  a  panel  of  twenty-six  jurors  had  been  secured,  counsel 
for  the  prisoner,  through  Mr.  Merrick,  said  :  "  If  your  honor  please, 
we  are  now  ready  to  proceed  to  empanel  the  jury.  Before  doing 
so,  however,  we  think  it  our  duty,  in  behalf  of  the  prisoner,  to 
file  our  challenge  to  the  present  array.  Your  honor  has  virtu 
ally  decided  the  question,  and  we  do  not  desire  to  take  up  any 
time  in  its  argument.  We  simply  wish  that  it  may  be  filed  so  that 
it  can  be  passed  upon." 

The  challenge  in  word  and  form  is  as  follows :  — 


INDICTMENT  AND    TRIAL.  245 

IN  THE    SUPREME   COURT   OF   THE   DISTRICT   OF   COLUMBIA. 

THE  UNITED  STATES  vs.  JOHN  H.  SURRATT. 
In  the  Criminal  Court,  March  Term,  1867. 

And  the  said  Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  in  obedience  to  the  order  of  the 
Court,  made  in  this  case  on  the  1 2th  of  June  instant,  this  day  makes  return  that  he 
hath  summoned,  and  now  hath  in  court  here  twenty-six  jurors,  talesman,  as  a  panel 
from  which  to  form  a  jury  to  try  the  said  cause,  and  the  names  of  the  twenty-six  jurors 
so  returned  being  called  by  the  clerk  of  said  court,  and  they  having  answered  to  their 
names  as  they  were  called,  the  said  John  H.  Surratt,  by  his  attorneys,  doth  challenge 
the  array  of  the  said  panel,  because  he  saith  it  doth  plainly  appear  by  the  records  and 
proceedings  of  the  Court  in  this  cause  that  no  jurors  have  ever  been  summoned  accord 
ing  to  law  to  serve  during  the  present  term  of  this  Court,  and  no  names  of  jurors,  duly 
and  lawfully  summoned,  have  been  placed  in  the  box  provided  for  in  the  fourth  section 
of  the  act  of  Congress,  entitled,  "An  Act  providing  for  the  Selection  of  Jurors  to  serve 
in  the  Sereral  Courts  of  the  District,"  approved  i6th  of  June,  1862,  on  or  before  the 
1st  day  of  February,  1867,  to  serve  for  the  ensuing  year,  wherefore  he  prays  judgment 
that  the  panel  now  returned  by  the  said  Marshal,  and  now  in  court  here,  be  quashed. 

MERRICK,  BRADLEY  &  BRADLEY, 

Attorneys  for  Surratt. 

This  motion  was  made  as  a  foundation  for  carrying  the  case  up 
on  a  writ  of  error  in  the  event  of  the  conviction  of  the  prisoner. 

On  Monday,  the  i8th  of  June,  the  case  was  opened  by  Mr. 
Nathaniel  Wilson,  Assistant  District  Attorney,  as  follows :  "  May  it 
please  your  honor  and  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  you  are  doubtless 
aware  that  it  is  customary  in  criminal  cases  for  the  prosecution  at 
the  beginning  of  a  trial  to  inform  the  jury  of  the  nature  of  the 
offense  to  be  inquired  into,  and  of  the  proof  that  will  be  offered  in 
support  of  the  charges  of  the  indictment.  By  making  such  a  state 
ment  I  hope  to  aid  you  in  clearly  ascertaining  the  work  that  is 
before  us,  and  in  apprehending  the  relevancy  and  significance  of 
the  testimony  that  will  be  produced  as  the  case  proceeds. 

"  The  grand  jury  of  the  District  of  Columbia  have  indicted  the 
prisoner  at  the  bar,  John  H.  Surratt,  as  one  of  the  murderers  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  It  has  become  your  duty  to  judge  whether  he 
be  guilty  or  innocent  of  that  charge,  —  a  duty  than  which  one 
more  solemn  or  momentous  never  was  committed  to  human  intel 
ligence.  You  are  to  turn  back  the  leaves  of  history  to  that  red 
page  on  which  is  recorded  in  letters  of  blood  the  awful  incidents  of 
that  April  night  on  which  the  assassin's  work  was  done  on  the  body 


246  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  American  republic,  —  a  night  on 
which  for  the  first  time  in  our  existence  as  a  nation,  a  blow  was 
struck  with  the  fell  purpose  not  only  of  destroying  human  life,  but 
the  life  of  the  nation,  the  life  of  liberty  itself.  Though  more  than 
two  years  have  passed  by  since  then,  you  scarcely  need  witnesses 
to  describe  to  you  the  scene  in  Ford's  Theatre  as  it  was  visible  in 
the  last  hour  of  the  President's  conscious  life.  It  has  been  present 
to  your  thoughts  a  thousand  times  since  then.  A  vast  audience 
were  assembled,  whose  hearts  were  throbbing  with  a  new  joy,  born 
of  victory  and  peace,  and  above  them  the  object  of  their  gratitude 
and  reverence,  —  he  who  had  borne  the  nation's  burdens  through 
many  and  disastrous  years,  —  sat  tranquil  and  at  rest  at  last,  a 
victor  indeed,  but  a  victor  in  whose  generous  heart  triumph 
awakened  no  emotions  save  those  of  kindliness,  of  forgiveness,  and 
of  charity.  To  him,  in  that  hour  of  supreme  tranquility,  to  him  in 
the  charmed  circle  of  friendship  and  affection,  there  came  the  form 
of  sudden  and  terrible  death. 

"  Persons  who  were  then  present  will  tell  you  that  at  about  twenty 
minutes  past  ten  o'clock  that  night,  the  night  of  the  I4th  of  April, 
1865,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  armed  with  pistol  and  knife,  passed 
rapidly  from  the  front  door  of  the  theatre,  ascended  to  the  dress 
circle,  and  entered  the  President's  box.  By  the  discharge  of  a 
pistol  he  inflicted  a  death  wound,  then  leaped  upon  the  stage,  and 
passing  rapidly  across  it,  disappeared  into  the  darkness  of  the 
night. 

"  We  shall  prove  to  your  entire  satisfaction,  by  competent  and 
credible  witnesses,  that  at  that  time  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  was 
then  present,  aiding  and  abetting  that  murder;  and  that  at  ten 
minutes  past  ten  o'clock  that  night  he  was  in  front  of  that  theatre 
in  company  with  Booth.  You  shall  hear  what  he  then  said  and 
did.  You  shall  know  that  his  cool  and  calculating  malice  was  the 
director  of  the  bullet  that  pierced  the  brain  of  the  President  and  the 
knife  that  fell  upon  the  venerable  Secretary  of  State.  You  shall 
know  that  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  was  the  contriver  of  that  villainy, 
and  that  from  the  presence  of  the  prisoner,  Booth,  drunk  with 
theatric  passion  and  traitorous  hate,  rushed  directly  to  the  execu 
tion  of  their  mutual  will.  We  shall  further  prove  to  you  that 


INDICTMENT  AND    TRIAL. 


247 


their  companionship  upon  that  occasion  was  not  an  accidental 
or  unexpected  one,  but  that  the  butchery  that  ensued  was  the 
ripe  result  of  a  long  premeditated  plot,  in  which  the  prisoner 
was  the  chief  conspirator.  It  will  be  proved  to  you  that  he  is 
a  traitor  to  the  government  that  protected  him ;  a  spy  in  the 
employ  of  the  enemies  of  his  country  in  the  years  1864  and  1865  ; 
passed  repeatedly  from  Richmond  to  Washington,  from  Wash 
ington  to  Canada,  weaving  the  web  of  his  nefarious  scheme,  plot 
ting  the  overthrow  of  this  government,  the  defeat  of  its  armies, 
and  the  slaughter  of  his  countrymen ;  and  as  showing  the  venom 
of  his  intent,  —  as  showing  a  mind  insensible  to  every  moral  obli 
gation  and  fatally  bent  on  mischief,  —  we  shall  prove  his  gleeful 
boasts  that  during  these  journeys  he  had  shot  down  in  cold 
blood,  weak  and  unarmed  Union  soldiers,  fleeing  from  rebel  prisons. 
It  will  be  proved  to  you  that  he  made  his  home  in  this  city  the 
rendezvous  for  the  tools  and  agents  in  what  he  called  his  "  bloody 
work,"  and  that  his  hand  deposited  at  Surrattsville,  in  a  con 
venient  place,  the  very  weapons  obtained  by  Booth  while  escap 
ing,  one  of  which  fell  or  was  wrenched  from  Booth's  death  grip, 
at  the  moment  of  his  capture. 

"While  in  Montreal,  Canada,  where  he  had  gone  from  Richmond, 
on  the  lOth  of  April,  on  the  Monday  before  the  assassination, 
Surratt  received  a  summons  from  his  co-conspirator,  Booth,  requir 
ing  his  immediate  presence  in  this  city.  In  obedience  to  that  pre 
concerted  signal,  he  at  once  left  Canada,  and  arrived  here  on  the 
1 4th.  By  numerous,  I  had  almost  said  a  multitude,  of  witnesses, 
we  shall  make  the  proof  to  be  as  clear  as  the  noonday  sun,  and  as 
convincing  as  the  axioms  of  truth,  that  he  was  here  during  the 
day  of  that  fatal  Friday,  as  well  as  present  at  the  theatre  at  night, 
as  I  have  before  stated.  We  shall  show  him  to  you  on  Pennsyl 
vania  Avenue,  booted  and  spurred,  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  fatal 
moment. 

"We  shall  show  him  in  conference  with  Herold  in  the  evening; 
we  shall  show  him  purchasing  a  contrivance  for  disguise  an  hour 
or  two  before  the  murder. 

"  When  the  last  blew  had  been  struck,  when  he  had  done  his 
utmost  to  bring  anarchy  and  desolation  upon  his  native  land,  he 


248  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

turned  his  back  upon  the  abomination  he  had  wrought,  he  turned 
his  back  upon  his  home  and  kindred,  and  commenced  his  shud 
dering  flight. 

"We  shall  trace  that  flight,  because  in  law  flight  is  the  criminal's 
inarticulate  confession,  and  because  it  happened  in  this  case  as  it 
always  happens,  and  always  must  happen,  that  in  some  moment 
of  fear  or  of  elation,  or  of  fancied  security,  he,  too,  to  others, 
confessed  his  guilty  deeds.  He  fled  to  Canada.  We  will  prove 
to  you  the  hour  of  his  arrival  there  and  the  route  he  took.  He 
there  found  safe  concealment,  and  remained  there  several  months, 
voluntarily  absenting  himself  from  his  mother.  In  the  following 
September  he  took  his  flight.  Still  in  disguise,  with  painted  face, 
and  painted  hair,  and  painted  hand,  he  took  ship  to  cross  the  At 
lantic.  In  mid-ocean  he  revealed  himself  and  related  his  exploits, 
and  spoke  freely  of  his  connection  with  Booth  in  the  conspiracy 
relating  to  the  President.  He  rejoiced  in  the  death  of  the  Presi 
dent,  he  lifted  his  impious  hand  to  heaven  and  expressed  the  wish 
that  he  might  live  to  return  to  America  and  serve  Andrew  Johnson 
as  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  served.  He  was  hidden  for  a  time 
in  England,  and  found  there  [sympathy  and  hospitality  ;  but  soon 
was  made  again  an  outcast  and  a  wanderer  by  his  guilty  secret. 
From  England  he  went  to  Rome,  and  hid  himself  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Papal  army  in  the  guise  of  a  private  soldier.  Having  placed 
almost  the  diameter  of  the  globe  between  himself  and  the  dead 
body  of  his  victim,  he  might  well  fancy  that  pursuit  was  baffled, 
but  by  the  happening  of  one  of  those  events  which  we  sometimes 
call  accidents,  but  which  are  indeed  the  mysterious  means  by  which 
Omnicient  and  Omnipotent  justice  reveals  and  punishes  the  doers 
of  evil,  he  was  discovered  by  an  acquaintance  of  his  boyhood. 
When  denial  would  not  avail  he  admitted  his  identity,  and  avowed 
his  guilt  in  these  memorable  words :  'I  have  done  the  Yankees  as 
much  harm  as  I  could.  We  have  killed  Lincoln,  the  nigger's 
friend.' 

"The  man  to  whom  Surratt  made  this  statement,  did  as  it  was  his 
high  duty  to  do  —  he  made  known  his  discovery  to  the  American 
minister.  There  is  no  treaty  of  extradition  with  the  Papal  States ; 
but  so  heinous  is  the  crime  with  which  Surratt  is  charged,  such 


INDICTMENT  AND    TRIAL.  249 

bad  notoriety  had  his  name  obtained,  that  his  Holiness  the  Pope 
and  Cardinal  Antonelli  ordered  his  arrest  without  waiting  for  a 
formal  demand  from  the  American  government.  Having  him 
arrested,  he  escaped  from  his  guards  by  a  leap  down  a  precipice  — 
a  leap  impossible  to  any  but  one  to  whom  conscience  made  life 
valueless.  He  made  his  way  to  Naples,  and  then  took  passage  in 
a  steamer  that  carried  him  across  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to  Alex 
andria,  in  Egypt.  He  was  pursued,  not  by  the  '  blood  hounds  of 
the  law,'  that  seem  to  haunt  the  imagination  of  the  prisoner's 
counsel  [this  refers  to  a  remark  made  by  Mr.  Merrick  when  dis 
cussing  the  motion  to  quash  the  panel] ,  but  by  the  very  elements, 
by  destruction  itself,  made  a  slave  in  the  service  of  justice.  The 
inexorable  lightning  thrilled  along  the  wires  that  stretch  through 
the  waste  of  waters  that  roll  between  the  shores  of  Italy  and  the 
shores  of  Egypt,  and  spake  in  his  ear  its  word  of  terrible  command  ; 
and  from  Alexandria,  aghast  and  manacled,  he  was  made  to  turn 
his  face  towards  the  land  he  had  polluted  by  the  curse  of  murder. 
He  is  here  at  last  to  be  tried  for  his  crime. 

And  when  the  facts  which  I  have  stated  have  been  proved,  as  proved 
they  assuredly  will  be,  if  anything  is  ever  proved  by  hnman  testi 
mony,  and  when  all  the  subterfuges  of  the  defense  have  been 
disproved,  as  disproved  they  assuredly  will  be,  we,  having  done  our 
duty  in  furnishing  you  with  that  proof  of  the  prisoner's  guilt,  in 
the  name  of  the  civilization  he  has  dishonored,  in  the  name  of  the 
country  he  has  betrayed  and  disgraced,  in  the  name  of  the  law 
he  has  violated  and  defied,  shall  demand  of  you  that  retribution, 
though  tardily,  shall  yet  surely  be  done,  upon  the  shedder  of 
innocent  and  precious  blood." 

Before  the  hearing  of  evidence  was  entered  upon,  the  prisoner 
presented  the  following  petition  to  the  Court:  — 

"  To  the  Honorable,  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  hold 
ing  the  Criminal  Court  in  March    Term,  i8bj. 

"The  petition  of  John  H.  Surratt  shows  that  he  has  been  put  upon  his  trial  in  a 
capital  case  in  this  court;  that  he  has  exhausted  all  his  means,  and  such  further  means 
as  have  been  furnished  him  by  the  liberality  of  his  friends,  in  preparing  for  his  defense, 
and  he  is  now  unable  to  procure  the  attendance  of  his  witnesses.  He  therefore  prays 
your  honor  for  an  order  that  process  may  issue  to  summon  his  witnesses,  and  to  compel 
their  attendance  at  the  cost  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,  according  to  the 
statute  in  such  cases  made  and  provided." 


250  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

This  petition  was  signed,  sworn  to  in  open  court,  and  attested  by 
the  clerk  according  to  law,  and  was  granted  by  the  court. 

The  government  introduced  eighty-five  witnesses  in  chief  to 
sustain  the  various  counts  in  the  indictment,  and  ninety-six  in  re 
buttal.  The  defense  introduced  ninety-eight  witnesses  to  overthrow 
the  testimony  of  the  witnesses  in  chief  on  the  part  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  twenty-three  in  surrebuttal,  making  in  all  three  hundred 
and  two  witnesses  that  were  examined  during  the  trial.  The 
examination  of  these  witnesses  occupied  the  period  of  thirty-nine 
days.  The  hearing  of  the  evidence  commenced  on  the  i/th  of 
June,  and  was  concluded  on  the  26th  of  July.  The  arguments  in 
the  case  were  concluded  on  the  /th  of  August,  and  on  that  day 
Judge  Fisher  delivered  his  charge  to  the  jury  and  gave  them  the 
case.  On  Saturday,  the  loth  day  of  August,  just  two  months  from 
the  commencement  of  the  trial,  the  jury  reported  that  they  stood 
about  equally  divided  in  favor  of  conviction  and  acquittal,  and 
that  there  was  no  prospect  of  their  being  able  to  agree. 

The  Court  inquired  whether  anything  was  to  be  said  why  the 
jury  should  not  now  be  discharged.  Mr.  Bradley  said:  "The  pris 
oner  gave  no  consent  to  any  discharge  of  the  jury.  If  they  were 
to  be  discharged  he  wants  it  understood  that  it  was  against  his  will 
and  protest." 

The  District  Attorney,  on  behalf  of  the  government,  left  the 
whole  matter  with  the  Court. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  trial,  on  Aug.  loth,  1867,  Surratt  was 
remanded  to  prison,  and  on  May  I2th,  1868,  he  asked  to  be 
released  on  bail,  but  was  refused.  On  June  22d,  1868,  he  was 
released  from  custody.  On  the  22d  of  September,  1868,  a  nolle 
prosequi  was  entered. 

Another  indictment  was  found  against  him  for  engaging  in 
rebellion.  Upon  this  he  was  ordered  to  be  admitted  to  bail  in  a 
bond  of  $20,000.  He  first  pleaded  not  guilty,  and  then  asked  to 
withdraw  this  plea,  and  to  file  a  special  plea,  which  was  granted. 
The  government  demurred  to  the  plea  on  Sept.  22d,  1869.  The 
demurrer  was  overruled,  and  he  was  finally  discharged. 

A  second  indictment  was  found  against  him  for  the  murder  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  District  Attorney  entered  a  nolle  pro 
sequi  on  this.  Thus  the  prisoner  was  set  at  large. 


INDICTMENT  AND  TRIAL.  2$  I 

The  result  of  this  trial  by  a  civil  court  made  it  clear  that  no 
verdict  could  be  expected  from  any  jury  that  could  be  obtained 
under  the  law,  and  so  the  case  was  not  further  prosecuted. 
It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the  author's  plan  to 
review  in  detail  this  great  mass  of  evidence.  Neither  is  it  neces 
sary.  It  is  sufficient  for  him  to  say  that  the  charges  contained  in 
the  indictment  were  fully  proven  by  the  testimony  in  chief  of  the 
witnesses  for  the  government,  and  that  this  testimony  was  not  im 
paired  in  any  essential  point  by  the  efforts  of  the  counsel  for  the 
defense  in  their  cross-examination  of  these  witnesses,  nor  yet  by 
the  testimony  offered  by  the  defense.  It  will  be  found  upon  a 
careful  and  candid  scrutiny  to  fully  sustain  the  statements  herein 
before  given  as  to  the  conduct  of  Surratt  in  his  relations  to  the 
transaction.  No  one  can  carefully  read  the  masterly  summing  up 
of  the  evidence,  and  the  fair  and  honest  interpretation  of  it  by 
Judge  Pierrepont  in  his  concluding  argument,  without  being 
thoroughly  convinced  that  Surratt  was  a  prominent  and  active 
member  of  the  conspiracy,  and  that  he  took  an  active  hand 
through  a  period  of  more  than  three  months  in  preparing  for 
the  execution  of  its  purposes,  as  also  in  its  final  accomplish 
ment.  The  evidence  was  shown  to  prove  conclusively  the  fact 
that  from  the  time  of  his  introduction  to  Booth,  on  the  23d  of 
December,  1864,  to  the  time  of  the  assassination,  their  associa 
tions  were  of  the  most  intimate  and  confidential  character;  that 
they  were  much  together,  and  co-operated  in  bringing  together 
in  Washington  City  the  other  members  of  the  conspiracy,  on 
whom  they  relied  for  important  parts  in  the  final  act.  It  was 
shown  that  the  house  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  the  mother  of  the  pris 
oner,  was  the  place  of  rendezvous  for  Booth,  Atzerodt,  and 
Payne,  and  that  her  house  at  Surrattsville,  occupied  by  her  ten 
ant,  Lloyd,  was  made  the  place  of  deposit  for  arms  to  be  used  by 
Booth  and  Herold  in  their  flight  after  the  murder;  that  these 
were  placed  there  by  Surratt,  and  that  his  mother  also  had  knowl 
edge,  not  only  of  this  fact,  but  of  the  purpose  for  which  they  had 
been  provided,  and  of  the  time  they  would  be  called  for,  and  was 
used  by  the  conspirators  to  convey  to  her  tenant,  Lloyd,  the  noti 
fication  to  have  them  ready,  as  they  would  be  called  for  that 
night.1 


252  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

It  was  here,  on  this  civil  trial,  that  "  the  scales  of  justice  fell," 
and  not,  as  alleged  by  the  prisoner's  counsel,  at  the  trial  before 
the  Military  Commission. 

The  District  Attorney  and  his  able  assistant,  Judge  Pierrepont, 
had  both  expressed  their  confidence  in  the  ability  of  the  civil 
courts  to  compass  the  ends  of  justice;  but  the  result  of  this  trial 
showed  that  in  a  crime  committed  to  further  political  party 
interests,  no  jury  could  be  expected  to  find  a  verdict;  and  so  the 
government  refused  to  prosecute  the  case  any  further.  The 
prisoner  was  set  at  large. 


CHAPTER    II. 

A   CRITICISM    OF   THE    DEFENSE. 

IT  now  remains  for  the  writer  to  review  the  course  of  the  defense 
in  this  trial,  and  to  point  out  its  policy,  its  spirit,  its  perversion  of 
facts,  and  disregard  of  evidence  in  carrying  out  its  purpose  to 
appeal,  first,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  jury,  and  then  to  pervert  pub 
lic  opinion. 

The  prisoner  was  defended  by  counsel  of  acknowledged  ability 
—  men  of  reputation  for  their  knowledge  of  law,  and  as  advocates 
at  the  bar.  But  despite  all  this,  their  defense  of  Surratt  was  as 
unique  in  its  character  as  was  the  case  itself.  Made  by  men 
learned  in  the  law,  it  ignored  the  requirements  of  law,  and  so  was 
managed  by  them  more  in  the  light  of  its  political  relations,  than 
that  of  its  legal  requirements.  In  proof  of  this  assertion  I  shall 
quote  freely  from  the  arguments  of  counsel,  and  I  think  I  shall  be 
able  to  show  that  I  am  fully  justified  in  expressing  this  opinion. 
I  shall  first  refer  to  the  remarkable  number  of  exceptions  taken 
by  the  counsel  for  the  defense  to  the  rulings  of  the  Court  on 
questions  of  evidence,  and  the  use  made  of  them.  I  will  quote 
first  from  the  argument  of  Mr.  Merrick. 

"In  a  prosecution  such  as  this,  conducted  against  one  of  its 
citizens  by  a  government,  what  should  be  the  course  of  that  gov 
ernment,  and  what  is  due  to  the  jury  and  to  the  prisoner? 
Whatever  there  is  that  can  throw  light  upon  the  alleged  crime  should 
be  let  into  the  jury  box.  All  evidence  that  could  go  before  the 
human  mind  calculated  to  impress  it  with  conviction,  or  modify 
its  opinions,  should  be  allowed  to  come  before  you.  What  has 
been  the  case  with  regard  to  this  trial?  Wherever  any  technical 
rule  of  law  could  by  any  constraint  whatever  exclude  a  piece  of 
testimony  calculated  to  enlighten  your  judgment,  it  has  been  in- 

253 


254  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

voked  to  exclude  that  testimony ;  has  been  bent  from  its  uniform 
application  and  its  generally  understood  principle  for  that  purpose. 
I  shall  find  no  fault  with  his  honor  on  the  bench  in  his  rulings, 
for  this  is  not  my  place  to  express  an  opinion  about  a  decision  of 
the  Court. 

A  member  of  the  bar  should  be  loyal  to  the  tribunal  before 
which  he  practices,  to  the  full  extent  of  gentlemanly  and  pro 
fessional  courtesy,  and  in  the  court-room  bow  with  pleasant 
acquiescence  in  whatever  the  judge  may  say.  With  that  acquies 
cence  I  bow,  and  yet  there  is  nothing  —  and  I  must  say  this,  and  say  it 
injustice  to  myself  —  there  is  nothing  that  has  fallen  from  his  honor 
in  the  adjudication  upon  these  questions  of  testimony  that  has 
changed  my  opinion  that  the  testimony  should  be  allowed  to  go  to 
the  jury.  One  hundred  and  fifty  exceptions  taken  by  the  defend 
ant's  counsel  encumber  this  record.  It  is  certainly  strange  that 
there  should  have  been  so  wide  a  difference,  and  I  regret  it. 
Without  complaining,  as  I  said,  of  the  decisions  of  the  Court,  it  can 
only  be  accounted  for  from  the  fact  that  the  attorneys  representing 
the  government  in  this  case  have  strained  every  principle  of  law, 
and  invoked  in  their  behalf  every  discretionary  power  of  the  court, 
as  against  the  prisoner." 

Notwithstanding  his  semblance  of  disclaimer,  Mr.  Merrick  here 
makes  an  appeal  to  the  jury,  on  the  implied  charge  of  partiality  on 
the  part  of  this  Court.  In  giving  his  charge  to  the  jury  Judge 
Fisher  very  properly  takes  notice  of  this  charge,  and  effectually 
rebukes  the  arrogance  of  the  counsel  in  the  following  language: 
"  Much  stress  has  been  laid  by  the  counsel  for  the  defense 
upon  the  fact,  which  they  assert,  that  during  the  progress  of  this 
trial  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  exceptions  have  been  taken 
to  the  rulings  of  the  court  concerning  the  admissibility  of  evidence. 
If  they  have  found  themselves  under  the  necessity  of  calculating 
the  number  of  these  exceptions,  and  parading  them  before  you, 
with  a  view  of  having  you  render  a  verdict  according  to  irrelevant 
evidence  not  before  you,  rather  than  according  to  the  legal  evidence 
which  you  have  heard,  I  have  no  disposition  to  criticise  their 
taste,  but  leave  them  to  present  their  case  in  their  own  way.  At 
the  same  time  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  remark  to  you  that  if  counsel 


A    CRITICISM   OF   THE  DEFENSE. 


255 


will  be  so  bold  as  to  present  propositions  to  the  Court  which  every 
tyro  in  the  profession  ought  to  know  are  untenable,  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  the  judge  must  always  be  so  weak  as  to 
sustain  them.  It  has  heretofore  been  supposed  that  exceptions  to 
the  rulings  of  a  judge  at  nisi  prius  were  intended  to  be  passed  in 
review  before  the  appellate  tribunal.  I  have  never  before  known 
them  to  be  neatly  calculated  and  presented  to  the  jury  by  way  of 
argument." 

A  jury  is  sworn  to  decide  according  to  the  law  and  evidence  in 
the  case.      But  how  are  jurors  to  decide  according  to  the  law,  not 
being  acquainted  with  law?      It  is  manifest  they  cannot  take  their 
instructions  on  the  law  from  the  counsel  employed  in  the  case,  as 
they  will  naturally  differ  widely  in  their  constructions  of  law.      It 
is  made,  therefore,  the  duty  of    the  court,   an    impartial   tribunal, 
skilled  in  law,  to  instruct  the  jury  on  all  the  points  of  law  involved 
in  the  case.      In  this  remarkable  case  the  counsel  for  the  defense, 
feeling  that  the  court  could  not  sustain  the  interpretations  of  the 
law    on   several  important  points  which  they  had  endeavored  to 
impress  on  the  jury  in  their  arguments,  took  the  remarkable  posi 
tion  that  the  jury  was  to  be  its  own  judge  of  questions  of    law. 
Mr.   Merrick,   in  the  course  of  his  argument,  took  this  position, 
and  argued   it  at  some  length,  as  follows:    "The  jury  is  specially 
charged,    it    is   true,    with    the    fact;    but   they   are   also    charged 
with  the  law.      You   are  to   instruct  them  by  your  learning,  your 
wisdom,   and   by  your   authority.     You  are  to  advise   them ;    but 
they  must  know  and  they  must  believe.      My  learned  brother  on 
the  other  side  (Mr.  Carrington)  seemed  to  feel  that  it  was  neces 
sary  to  press  you,  gentlemen,  very  hard  upon  your  obligation  to 
follow  the  instructions  of  the  Court.      I  have  never  heard  him  say 
that  before.     Other  cases  have  been  tried  before  this,  but  I  have 
never  heard  him  talk  so  earnestly  to  the  jury  about  being  obliged 
to  follow  the  instructions  of  the  Court.     Why  is  he  so  solicitous  in 
this  case?      Does  he  think  you  won't  dare  to  do  right?      He  told 
you,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  you  were  sworn  to  try  this  case 
according  to  the  law  and  the  fact,  and  that  you  must  take  the  law 
from  the  court;    and  if  you   departed  from  the  law  so  given  you, 
you  would  be  perjured.      I   tell  you   it  is  no  such  thing.      If  you 


256  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

find  a  verdict  of  guilty,  and  do  not  believe  the  party  to  be  guilty 
in  every  particular,  in  your  judgment  and  in  your  hearts,  then 
you  are  perjured  men,  I  care  not  what  the  Court's  instruction  is. 

"  Has  my  learned  friend  read  the  oath?  I  don't  think  he  has. 
Mr.  Clerk,  will  you  be  kind  enough  to  read  it."  (The  clerk  then 
read  the  oath.) 

Mr.  Merrick  resuming,  said:  "Where  is  the  law?  Why  did 
you  tell  the  jury  what  you  did?  The  language  is,  'And  a  true 
verdict  give  according  to  the  evidence.'  My  learned  brother  has 
had  that  oath  ringing  in  his  ears  for  six  years.  Why  didn't  he 
tell  you  what  it  was?  You  are,  gentlemen,  to  find  a  verdict 
according  to  the  evidence.  What  sort  of  verdict  are  you  to  find  ? 
Guilty,  or  not  guilty.  That  is  all  you  can  say.  You  cannot  say 
'  Guilty,'  under  the  Court's  instruction,  or  '  Not  guilty,'  under  the 
Court's  instruction.  If  you  say  '  Guilty,'  you  say  '  Guilty  as  in 
dicted,'  upon  your  conscience  resting  the  weight  of  the  guilt.  If 
your  verdict  should  be  '  Guilty,'  it  will  be  followed  by  blood,  for  you 
see  there  is  no  mercy  anywhere  in  those  that  represent  the  govern 
ment.  If  your  verdict  is  guilty,  then,  indeed,  you  look  upon  a 
dying  man.  Upon  your  consciences  will  rest  the  responsibility  of 
that  verdict. 

"And  let  me  say  to  you,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  on  that  awful 
day  when  you  shall  stand  before  the  last  tribunal  to  be  judged,  and 
the  All-Seeing  Eye  shall  look  into  your  hearts  and  ask  you  why 
you  found  this  verdict  of  guilty,  think  you  He  will  harken  if  you 
say,  '  The  judge's  instructions  made  me  do  it.'  He  will  say  to  you, 
'  Were  you  not  free  agents,  with  minds  and  intellects,  sworn  as  a 
jury  in  a  free  country?  Were  you  not  told  by  the  counsel  for  the 
prisoner  at  the  bar  that  it  was  your  duty  to  find  this  verdict 
according  to  your  judgments,  your  consciences,  and  didn't  you 
disregard  him?  ' 

"  If  Judge  Fisher's  instructions  made  you  find  it,  bring  Judge 
Fisher.  Where  is  the  Judge?  Think  you  he  will  step  forward  and 
say,  '  I  will  take  the  burden.'  No,  gentlemen.  Let  me  say  to 
you  now,  that  by  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  by  the  laws  of  God,  the 
responsibility  is  on  the  judge  to  instruct  you  rightly,  to  guide 
you  correctly,  to  give  you  wise  and  judicious  counsel,  not  as 


A    CRITICISM   OF   THE  DEFENSE. 


257 


mandatory  and  binding  on  your  conscience,  but  as  advisory  to 
your  judgment,  to  enlighten  the  pathway  you  are  to  tread  in  your 
investigations.  We  shall  ask  no  instructions,  and  desire  none.  The 
law  of  murder  is  too  plain  to  need  any,  and  you,  gentlemen,  are 
too  intelligent  not  to  understand  it.  Indeed,  if  we  desire  some 
explanation,  we  would  prefer  to  give  it  to  you  in  the  way  of  argu 
ment,  rather  than  trust  it  to  tJic  distinguished  judge  who  presides. 
We  would  trust  it  to  argument,  because,  with  regard  to  these  plain 
questions,  all  men  can  comprehend  what  the  law  is.  We  would 
prefer  trusting  it  to  the  weight  of  our  own  character  with  tlic  jury 
as  men  and  lawyers'"  After  this  ingenious  appeal  to  the  jury,  the 
learned  advocate  then  proceeded  to  recount  and  expound  the  pro 
positions  of  law  on  which  the  District  Attorney  had  invoked  the 
instructions  of  the  Court. 

Judge  Fisher  in  charging  the  jury  made  the  following  reference 
to  this  remarkable  argument  by  Mr.  Merrick :  "You  have  been 
told,  gentlemen,  by  the  counsel  for  the  defense,  in  a  manner  not 
very  respectful,  certainly  by  no  means  complimentary  to  the  Court, 
that  you  are  the  judges  of  the  law  as  well  as  the  facts  in  criminal 
cases,  and  that  you  have  the  right  to  disregard  the  instructions  of 
the  Court  in  matters  of  law ;  and  they  tell  you  that  their  exposi 
tions  of  the  law,  and  the  weight  of  character  they  possess,  may  be 
more  safely  relied  upon  than  the  instructions  which  may  be  given 
you  by  the  Court.  The  weight  of  character  of  a  prisoner's  coun 
sel  would  be  a  variable,  and  not  unfrequently  a  very  unsafe  cri 
terion  by  which  the  jury  should  judge  as  to  the  law  of  his  case. 
Perhaps  they  would  have  you  regard  the  court  as  sitting  on  the 
bench  merely  to  discharge  the  duty  of  preserving  order  and  deco 
rum  in  the  court  room,  which  probably  the  crier  of  the  court  or 
baliff  might  be  disposed  to  regard  as  an  usurpation  of  his  preroga 
tive.  If  the  jury  are  entirely  to  disregard  the  judge's  instructions 
as  to  the  law  of  a  case,  I  confess  I  can  see  but  little  left  than  that 
for  him  to  perform. 

"  It  is  true,  gentlemen,  that  you  have  the  power,  and  in  cases 
where  your  consciences  are  satisfied  that  the  instructions  of  the 
Court  are  dictated,  not  by  an  honest  desire  to  enlighten  the  jury 
as  to  the  true  state  of  the  law,  but  by  corrupt  and  wicked  motives, 
you  have  the  right  to  disregard  the  instructions  purposely  intended 


258  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

to  mislead  you.  But  to  claim  that  the  jury  are  better  judges  of 
what  the  law  may  be  than  the  Court,  is  about  as  reasonable  as  to 
assert  that  a  plain  farmer  or  merchant  may  be  taken  fresh  from  his 
plough  or  his  counter,  and  be  more  capable  of  navigating  and 
manceuvering  a  steam  frigate,  or  to  lead  your  armies  to  certain 
victories,  than  your  admiral  or  commander-in-chief.  In  my 
opinion,  you  have  just  the  same  right  to  disregard  the  evidence 
of  the  witnesses  who  stood  before  you  unimpeached  in  any  matter 
respecting  the  facts  involved  in  the  cause,  as  you  have  to  disregard 
what  the  Court  may  say  to  you,  under  an  official  oath,  as  to  the 
law  that  may  apply  to  the  facts.  A  jury  have  the  poiver,  if 
they  choose  to  exercise  it,  after  having  assumed  the  obligations  of 
an  oath,  to  say  that  they  will  neither  believe  the  judge  nor  the 
witnesses,  but  decide  upon  the  law  and  facts  according  to  their 
own  caprice,  or  the  confidence  which  they  may  repose  in  the 
character  of  counsel  on  either  side,  but  such  is  not  the  purpose 
for  which  juries  were  instituted,  and  they  have  no  right  so  to  act. 
When  the  witnesses  in  the  cause  have  testified  before  you  as 
to  the  facts,  it  is  then  the  office  of  the  judge,  under  his  official 
oath,  to  testify  to  you  in  the  spirit  of  truth,  according  to  the  best 
of  his  knowledge  and  ability,  as  to  what  is  the  law  which  may 
be  applicable  to  those  facts ;  and  an  honest  jury  will  disregard 
neither  the  testimony  of  the  witnesses  nor  the  instructions  of  the 
judge,  unless  they  are  satisfied  that  corrupt  motives  have  actuated 
them.  They  will  leave  the  party  where  the  law  leaves  him,  to  his 
legitimate  redress,  —  a  writ  of  error  to  the  appellate  court." 

Referring  to  the  course  of  counsel  in  this  illegitimate  appeal  to 
the  jury  in  their  argument  on  this  point,  and  to  their  appeal,  based 
on  the  number  of  their  exceptions  to  the  rulings  of  the  Court,  the 
judge  made  this  further  remark  in  vindicating  the  position  and 
dignity  of  the  Court:  "  In  reference  to  these  matters  I  may 
observe  that,  perhaps,  I  owed  it  to  the  dignity  of  the  bench  to 
have  interrupted  counsel  in  the  conduct  of  the  case  in  this  par 
ticular,  but  in  a  cause  involving  the  life  of  the  prisoner  upon  the 
one  hand  and  the  vindication  of  the  outraged  justice  of  a  nation 
in  mourning  upon  the  other,  I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  cast  not  an 
atom  in  the  one  scale  or  in  the  other  which  might  by  any  possi 
bility  tend  to  prejudice  either  side  of  the  issue." 


CHAPTER  III. 

TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  AND  EVIDENCE  BY  THE  COUNSEL 
FOR  THE  DEFENSE  AND  THEIR  ANIMUS  TOWARD  THE 
GOVERNMENT  AND  APPEALS  TO  THE  POLITICAL  PREJUDICES 
OF  JURORS. 

THE  conduct  of  this  trial  on  the  part  of  the  defense  toward  the 
witnesses  for  the  prosecution  was  most  remarkable.  The  law 
prescribes  the  methods  by  which  testimony  is  to  be  discredited, 
and  the  eminent  lawyers  who  defended  the  prisoner  were  of  course 
well  acquainted  with  the  legal  methods  of  impeaching  testimony. 
That  they  did  not  confine  themselves  to  these  was  not  only 
unprofessional,  but  was  calculated  to  create  a  suspicion  that  they 
had  an  intuitive  perception  of  the  fact  that  the  methods  known 
to  the  law  would  not  avail  them  in  this  case.  Hence  from  the 
first  they  attempted  to  influence  the  jury  by  treating  the  govern 
ment  witnesses  with  supercillious  contempt,  and  even  scorn. 

They  did  not,  however,  stop  here,  but  whenever  they  could  find 
or  make  an  occasion  they  would  throw  out  insinuations  against 
the  witnesses  en  masse  by  side  remarks  intended  for  the  ears  of  the 
jury. 

They  spoke  of  the  witnesses  who  were  kept  together  in  a  room, 
to  be  called  as  they  were  needed,  as  being  in  the  "penitentiary," 
and  added  to  this  that  "  they  would  soon  be  in  another  penitentiary." 

On  the  examination  of  Dr.  McMillen,  the  surgeon  of  the  ocean 
steamer  "  Peruvian,"  in  whose  charge  Father  La  Pierre  had  placed 
Surratt  under  the  name  of  McCarthy,  and  to  whom  Surratt  had 
made  confessions  during  his  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  that  were 
conclusive  of  his  guilt,  the  counsel  for  Surratt  made  themselves  so 
offensive  that  the  witness  was  provoked  to  a  retort  in  self-defense. 

This  witness  was   intolerable    to  them  because  of  the  directness 


26O  ASS  ASS  IN  A  TION  OF  LINCOLN. 

and  force  of  his  testimony.  In  self-defense  the  Doctor  was  pro 
voked  into  making  the  following  remark :  He  said  "  he  would 
tell  the  counsel  (Mr.  Merrick),  and  if  he  was  not  deaf,  he  could 
hear,"  and  repeated  his  answer,  adding  that  "  Mr.  Merrick  had 
insulted  witnesses  the  other  day,  and  that  it  was  the  act  of  a  coward 
and  a  sneak."  The  Court  here  cautioned  the  witness  that  such 
language  was  not  becoming,  but  also  remarked  "that  it  was  not 
becoming  in  counsel  to  try  to  worry  witness  into  bad  temper." 

Witness  stated  "that  Mr.  Merrick  had  remarked  the  other  day 
that  all  the  witnesses  in  the  adjoining  room  ought  to  go  to  the 
penitentiary,  or  something  to  that  effect ;  that  he  was  just  as  good 
as  Merrick." 

On  the  following  day,  at  the  opening  of  the  court,  Mr.  Bradley 
said:  "If  your  honor  please,  before  we  proceed  with  the  trial  of 
this  case,  I  beg  leave  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Court  to  an 
incident  which  occurred  just  before  the  adjournment  yesterday,  and 
to  ask  that  the  notes  of  the  reporter  may  be  read.  Your  honor 
was  very  much  occupied  at  the  time,  and  I  desire  that  the  record 
may  be  read  in  order  that  you  may  see  what  passed,  and  what  led 
to  the  attack  made  by  the  witness  upon  the  stand  upon  the  counsel 
with  whom  I  am  associated,  your  honor,  without  having  heard 
what  passed  at  that  time,  if  not  in  precise  words  yet  in  substance, 
censured  the  counsel  to  whom  these  observations  were  addressed. 
I  think,  in  looking  at  it,  your  honor  will  see  that  there  was  no 
provocation  given  ;  and  that  if  there  was,  it  is  due  to  the  dignity 
of  this  court,  and  to  the  protection  of  the  members  of  the  bar,  to 
which  they  are  entitled  at  the  hands  of  the  Court,  that  some  notice 
should  be  taken  of  what  then  passed."  After  the  reading  of  so 
much  of  the  report  as  related  to  the  matter,  the  Court  spoke  as 
follows :  "  I  did  not  hear  what  was  said  by  the  witness  in  regard  to 
the  gunboats,  for  the  reason  that  I  was  at  the  time  occupied  in 
preparing  some  passes  for  a  friend.  When  my  attention  was 
called  to  the  remark  made  use  of  by  the  witness  towards  the 
counsel,  I  was  under  the  impression  that  he  had  been  provoked  to 
it  by  something  that  had  been  said  by  the  counsel.  I  cannot,  how 
ever,  perceive  in  the  record  which  has  been  read  anything  which 
ought  to  have  called  forth,  or  which  justifies,  the  expression  of  the 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  261 

witness.  I  will  say  now  to  the  witness,  that  although  Mr.  Merrick 
did  say  a  few  days  ago,  in  regard  to  the  witnesses  who  were  in  the 
adjoining  room  (which  Mr.  Bradley  had  called  a  penitentiary) 
that  they  (the  witnesses)  would  soon  be  in  another  penitentiary, 
or  words  to  that  effect,  it  is  not  the  privilege  of  a  witness  to  take 
exception  in  the  way  he  did  to  any  remarks  made  in  the  court 
room.  He  may  appeal  to  the  Court  to  protect  him  if  he  is 
aggrieved."  [Turning  to  witness]  "  You  must  not,  hereafter,  in  your 
examination,  make  use  of  any  expressions  to  counsel  which  are  at 
all  insulting  in  their  character,  however  much  you  may  feel  yourself 
aggrieved  by  remarks  which  they  may  have  made  in  reference  to 
witnesses  generally,  or  in  reference  to  yourself  before  your 
examination. 

"  In  this  connection  it  may  not  be  improper  to  observe  that  I 
have  never,  in  all  my  judicial  experience,  seen  a  case  in  which 
there  has  been  so  much  trouble  with  regard  to  the  examination  of 
witnesses  and  so  much  bitterness  of  feeling  displayed. 

"  It  may  be  all  right,  but  I  confess  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should 
be  so.  I  cannot,  of  course,  enter  into  the  feelings  of  counsel,  and 
it  is  possible  they  may  feel  themselves  aggrieved,  and  therefore 
regard  themselves  as  justified  in  exhibiting  this  spirit.  I  will  say, 
further,  that  I  have  never  seen  witnesses  cross-examined  with  so 
much  asperity  as  I  have  in  the  case  now  pending.  It  does  not 
appear  to  me,  therefore,  as  at  all  strange  that  witnesses  should  be 
worried  into  such  remarks  as  this  witness  has  uttered,  especially 
when  intimations  are  publicly  thrown  out  by  counsel  as  to  their 
fitness  for  the  penitentiary,  and  that,  too,  when  some  of  the  most 
respectable  persons  in  the  land,  such,  for  instance,  as  General 
Grant  and  Assistant  Secretary  Seward,  are  among  the  number. 
And  not  even  was  the  effect  of  the  remark  allowed  to  stop  with 
the  intimation,  but  when  attention  was  called  to  it  by  the  District 
Attorney,  in  the  hope,  I  presume,  that  it  would  be  recalled,  it  was 
repeated,  and  with  the  additional  observation  that  the  propriety  of 
the  remark  could  be  shown.  When  such  things  occur  it  is  not  at 
all  surprising  that  witnesses  should  come  here  prepared  to  avenge 
themselves  by  making  insulting  replies  to  the  counsel.  I  deeply 
deplore  it,  and  will  endeavor,  by  most  carefully  observing  all  that 


262  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

transpires,  to  prevent  a  similar  recurrence  on  the  part  of  either 
counsel  or  witnesses ;  but  however  watchful  the  Court  may  be,  such 
things  will  occasionally  break  forth  at  times  and  under  circum 
stances  when,  from  not  expecting  it,  it  is  impossible  for  the  Court 
to  check  them."  [Again  addressing  himself  to  the  witness.]  "  Dr. 
McMillen,  you  are  highly  reprehensible  for  having  made  such 
remarks  as  that  to  which  exception  has  been  taken.  It  was 
altogether  out  of  place.  If  you  felt  yourself  aggrieved  by  any 
remark,  you  should  have  called  on  the  Court  for  protection.  You 
will  now  proceed  to  give  your  evidence,  and  in  a  manner  respect 
ful  to  the  counsel.  If  the  counsel  on  either  side  shall  treat  you 
with  what  you  conceive  to  be  disrespect,  you  will  appeal  to  the 
Court,  and  the  Court  will  intervene  for  your  protection.  I  would, 
however,  suggest  to  gentlemen  on  both  sides  that  in  the  exam 
ination  of  witnesses,  if  they  will  consult  Quintilion  and  Allison  in 
regard  to  their  duty  in  this  respect  (and  no  doubt  they  have  read 
the  remarks  of  both  these  authors  on  the  subject),  they  will  find 
that  those  writers  say  nothing  is  to  by  gained  by  a  bitterness  of 
manner  toward  witnesses  either  on  examination  in  chief  or  cross- 
examination,  but  that  everything  may  possibly  be  gained  by  kind 
ness  and  conciliatory  manners ;  and  I  think  it  would  be  a  decided 
improvement  in  this  case  if  their  suggestions  were  accepted.  In 
the  course  of  the  five  years  that  I  was  engaged  in  prosecuting 
criminal  cases,  I  do  not  recollect  ever  to  have  had  an  unkind 
word  with  a  witness  on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  and  never  in 
a  civil  case  except  on  one  occasion,  when  a  witness  of  my  own 
turned  against  me.  Then  I  was  led  away  by  a  natural  quickness 
of  temper.  I  advise  that  we  should  all,  to  the  best  of  our  ability, 
endeavor  to  control  our  tempers  in  conducting  this  case ;  and  then 
there  will  be  no  fear  of  a  repetition  of  the  unpleasant  occurrences 
that  have  happened  during  its  progress." 

To  this  Mr.  Merrick  replied :  "  I  feel  it  incumbent  upon  me  to 
say,  after  what  has  fallen  from  the  Court,  especially  as  your  honor 
seems  to  have  the  impression  that  I  intended  my  remarks  to 
apply  to  all  the  witnesses,  including  Secretary  Seward  and  General 
Grant,  that  while  your  honor  misunderstood  me  in  this  regard, 
I  do  not  believe  I  was  misunderstood  by  some  others  outside,  in 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  263 

supposing  I  intended  to  embrace  all  the  witnesses  in  that  remark. 
I  will  here  say  that  I  have  the  greatest  respect  for  General  Grant 
and  Mr.  Seward,  and  I  apprehend  that  among  the  witnesses  in  the 
case  it  is  perfectly  well  understood  to  whom  I  referred  and  to  whom 
I  did  not  refer.  I  apprehend  that  no  sane  man  can  suppose  that  I 
meant  any  such  reference  to  General  Grant,  Mr.  Seward,  or  Mrs. 
Seward,  and  that  class  of  witnesses.  I  will  only  say,  in  conclu 
sion,  that  I  think,  without  any  further  explanation,  or  more  direct 
pointing  of  the  remark  at  present,  it  is  perfectly  well  understood 
among  the  witnesses  to  whom  the  remark  referred." 

To  this  the  Court  replied  :  "  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  under 
stood  or  not.  I  cannot  understand  it,  because  I  am  bound  not  to 
know  the  witnesses,  either  as  regards  their  own  private  character, 
or  the  character  of  their  testimony,  and  I  enter  into  the  trial  of 
this  case  knowing  nothing,  as  it  were,  about  either,  scarcely  ever 
having  glanced  at  the  testimony,  and  of  course,  therefore,  I  cannot 
enter  into  the  feelings  of  counsel  on  the  subject.  I  do  not  know 
to  what  witnesses  these  remarks  may  be  directed,  but  this  I  do 
know,  that  there  are  certain  legal  methods  pointed  out  in  the  text 
books  of  the  law  by  which  we  are  to  be  guided  in  undertaking  to 
discredit  the  testimony  of  witnesses.  One  method  is  the  discredit 
ing  of  the  witness  by  himself ;  by  his  own  contradictions,  and  by  his 
mode  and  manner  of  testifying.  Another  is  by  proving  the  wit 
ness  to  be  utterly  devoid  of  reputation  for  truth  and  veracity,  and 
not  to  be  believed  on  his  oath.  Another  is  by  contradicting  him 
by  the  conflicting  testimony  of  other  witnesses.  These  are  the  legal 
modes  that  are  pointed  out  in  the  law  books,  and  any  side  remarks 
that  are  made  by  way  of  prejudicing  a  jury,  any  acting  in  the 
case,  the  casting  of  sinister  looks  at  the  jury,  are  departures  from 
the  rules  laid  down. 

"  The  examination  of  a  witness  ought  to  be  conducted  by  the  wit 
ness  standing  up  and  the  counsel  standing  up,  and  looking  each  other 
in  the  face,  without  the  counsel  directing  his  remarks  to  the  jury 
by  turning  towards  them  instead  of  turning  towards  the  witness. 
That  is  the  proper  way  to  conduct  either  an  examination  in  chief 
or  a  cross-examination.  " 

The  fact  that  the  Court  deemed  it  necessary  to  deliver  such  a 


264  A SSA SSINA  77 ON  OF  LINCOLN. 

lecture  as  this  to  counsel,  who  were  men  of  age  and  experience  in 
their  profession,  and  who  from  their  reading  ought  to  have  been  as 
well  informed  as  the  Court  on  the  proper  treatment  of  a  witness  and 
the  legal  methods  of  discrediting  testimony,  indicates  that  he  had 
found  in  their  conduct  such  flagrant  departures  from  the  require 
ments  of  law  and  professional  conduct  a  necessity  for  such  criticism 
and  such  admonitions.  The  opinion  of  the  Court  as  thus  expressed 
fully  justifies  me  in  the  charges  I  have  made  against  the  conduct 
of  the  defense  and  their  unprofessional  efforts  to  discredit  testimony. 
I  am  still  futher  justified  in  it  by  the  remark  of  Mr.  Merrick  that  they 
(the  counsel  for  the  defense)  "  had  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  attorneys 
a  mass  of  the  most  corrupt  battalion  that  was  ever  summoned  to 
support  a  cause  in  a  criminal  court.  " 

Here  Mr.  Merrick  attempts  to  set  aside  all  of  the  testimony  that 
had  been  offered  by  the  goverment  proving  the  guilt  of  the  prisoner, 
by  denouncing  it  as  corrupt  throughout,  and  unworthy  of  the  slightest 
consideration.  This  would  certainly  be  as  easy  a  method  as  it  would 
be  novel  to  throw  out  testimony  en  masse  upon  the  mere  ipse  dixitoi 
counsel,  and  in  consequence  of  the  legal  standing  and  weight  of 
character  claimed  by  them  with  such  manifest  self  complacency, 
but  when  we  consider  the  fact  that  upon  a  candid  and  careful 
scrutiny  of  all  the  testimony  in  the  case,  it  could  be  set  aside  in 
no  other  way,  we  could  not  perhaps  reasonably  expect  them  to  re 
frain  from  trying  to  get  the  benefit  of  all  the  method  that  was  left 
them. 

The  most  important  witnesses  introduced  by  the  government  and 
those  who  most  unequivocally  proved  the  existence  of  a  conspiracy 
and  the  connection  of  the  prisoner  with  it,  as  also  his  participancy 
in  its  accomplishment,  and  also  the  fact  that  his  mother  belonged 
to  it  and  performed  a  part  in  preparing  for  its  accomplishment,  had 
stood  every  test  that  ingenuity  could  devise  to  discredit  their  testi 
mony.  Some  of  them  had  been  kept  on  the  stand  under  cross  ex 
amination  for  nearly  two  days,  and  could  not  be  made  to  discredit 
their  own  testimony,  either  by  contradictions  or  mode  of  answering. 
Neither  had  they  been  discredited  by  proving  that  they  were  utterly 
devoid  of  character  for  truth  and  veracity,  and  not  to  be  believed  on 
oath.  The  attempts  at  their  contradiction  by  the  conflicting  testimony 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  26$ 

of  other  witnessess  had  all  proven  miserable  failures,  and  so  the 
counsel  for  the  defense  attempted  to  have  their  client  declared  inno 
cent  by  scouting  all  of  the  evidence  in  the  case  and  offering  their 
own  convictions  of  his  entire  innocence,  and  referring  the  jury 
to  their  weight  of  character  and  legal  standing  to  enforce  their 
opinions  on  the  jury  as  grounds  for  a  favorable  verdict  for  their 
client.  Never  did  able  lawyers  deal  more  unfairly  with  witnesses 
nor  with  evidence,  nor  more  wantonly  set  at  naught  the  established 
rules  of  evidence,  not  only  in  the  respects  referred  to,  but  also 
in  the  efforts  that  they  made  to  introduce  testimony  which  they 
must  have  known  to  be  inadmissible  under  the  rules  of  evidence, 
as  already  shown  in  the  number  of  exceptions  \vhich  they  not  only 
took  to  the  rulings  of  the  court,  but  kept  count  of  and  paraded 
before  the  jury.  Their  animus  toward  the  government  was  also 
shown  in  this  matter  of  testimony,  as  also  in  other  ways  to  be 
hereafter  noticed.  They  charged  the  government  with  presenting 
testimony  on  this  trial  that  it  knew  to  be  false,  and  withholding 
testimony  from  the  military  commission  that  would  have  proven  the 
innocence  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  To  sustain  the  first  charge,  they  asserted 
in  regard  to  the  handkerchief  found  by  Blinn  at  the  Burlington 
depot,  that  it  had  been  dropped  by  a  government  detective,  and  not 
lost  by  Surratt.  Blinn,  however,  was  positive  in  his  testimony  that 
he  found  the  handkerchief  on  the  morning  of  the  1 8th,  but  the  hand-  ( 
kerchief  which  Holahan,  the  detective,  claimed  to  have  lost,  was 
lost  on  the  morning  of  the  2Oth  of  April.  He  did  not  discover 
its  loss,  however,  until  he  got  to  Essex  Junction,  and  did  not  know 
where  he  had  lost  it.  The  handkerchief  found  by  Blinn  on  the 
morning  of  the  i8th,  and  put  in  evidence  by  the  government, 
could  not  therefore  have  been  the  handkerchief  that  Holahan 
claimed  to  have  lost.  There  was  also  too  heavy  a  cloud  of  uncer 
tainty  hanging  over  his  (Holahan's)  testimony  after  his  cross- 
examination,  to  have  warranted  the  counsel  in  making  so  serious 
a  charge  against  the  government  as  that  it  knew  that  Holahan,  and 
not  Surratt,  lost  the  handkerchief. 

In  further  proof  of  the  charge  that  they  disregarded  and  set  at 
naught  the  rules  of  evidence,  they  tried  to  get  in  a  statement  by 
John  Matthews  of  the  contents  of  an  article  put  into  his  hands  by 


266  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

Booth  on  the  afternoon  of  the  I4th  of  April,  with  a  request  that  if 
he  (Booth)  did  not  see  him  before  10  o'clock  on  the  following 
morning  he  should  hand  it  to  the  National  Intelligencer  for  publi 
cation,  and  which  Matthews,  after  the  assassination,  had  burned, 
thinking  it  wrould  put  him  in  danger  to  have  such  a  thing  found  in 
his  possession.  They  proposed  to  prove  by  this  witness  that  neither 
the  prisoner  nor  his  mother  were  in  the  conspiracy.  Of  course 
they  knew  that  they  could  not  prove  the  contents  of  a  paper  that 
would  have  been  inadmissible  even  if  it  had  been  presented.  But 
if  they  had  had  the  paper  in  their  possession  they  could  not 
have  proven  anything  by  it,  as  it  was  represented  to  be  a  paper 
prepared  by  Booth  to  justify  himself  in  the  crime  he  had  in  con 
templation,  and  would  have  been  no  more  admissible  as  evidence 
than  the  diary  which  Booth  kept  during  his  flight,  every  entry  in 
it  having  been  made  in  view  of  his  probable  failure  to  make  his 
escape,  and  with  the  intention  of  palliating  his  crime.  It  was  of 
no  more  value  as  evidence  than  was  his  assertion  of  the  entire  in 
nocence  of  his  companion,  Herold,  just  a  few  minutes  before  he  was 
shot.  Yet  they  censured  the  government  for  not  putting  this  diary 
in  evidence  before  the  Commission,  asserting  that  its  reason  for  with 
holding  it  was  that  it  would  have  proven  the  innocence  of  Mrs. 
Surratt,  thus  by  implication  asserting  that  the  government  was 
thirsting  for  her  blood,  and  was  determined  that  she  must  be  con 
victed  right  or  wrong. 

This  position  was  boldly  taken  by  them  in  their  arguments,  as  we 
shall  hereafter  see,  in  the  face  not  only  of  the  evidence  on  which 
she  was  declared  guilty  by  the  Commission,  but  also  in  the  face  of  that 
presented  on  this  trial,  which  much  more  clearly  and  fully  established 
her  guilt.  I  have  thus  been  careful  to  show  from  the  record  that 
I  am  justified  in  the  strictures  I  am  making  on  the  course  of  the 
defense.  I  would  be  sorry  to  do  any  injustice  to  these  men  if  they 
were  here  to  answer  for  themselves,  much  more  so  now  that  the 
two  senior  members,  Mr.  Bradley  and  Mr.Merrick,  are  numbered  with 
the  dead.  My  charitable  conclusion  in  their  behalf  is  that  their 
political  opposition  to  the  government  so  prejudiced  their  minds 
that  they  could  not  bring  themselves  into  a  judicial  frame  for  the 
trial  of  this  case.  Their  religious  sympathies  with  Mrs.  Surratt, 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          26? 

and  their  ready  acceptance  of  the  assertion  of  Father  Walter  that 
she  was  "  as  innocent  as  the  newborn  babe,"  so  influenced  their 
minds  that  they  would  reject  as  false  any  testimony  whatever  that 
went  to  establish  her  guilt.  Their  sympathies  then  would  naturally 
lead  them  to  conduct  the  defense  of  her  son  in  the  same  spirit  of 
determination  to  hold  him  innocent  in  spite  of  all  adverse  testimony. 
The  prisoner  found  his  counsel  in  a  state  of  mind  to  readily  ac 
cept  the  ingenuous  fabrication  which  he  had  had  two  years  to  get 
into  form,  as  also  no  doubt  the  able  assistance  of  the  Reverend 
Fathers  who  so  sedulously  watched  for  his  return  to  Canada  after  the 
murder  of  the  President,  and  who  at  once  took  him  under  their 
protection  on  his  return  to  Montreal,  and  kept  him  secreted  for  five 
months,  until  they  could  get  him  landed  in  the  Pope's  dominions ; 
and  then  when  he  was  brought  back  and  put  upon  his  trial,  stood 
by  him  from  day  to  day  with  unfaltering  fidelity,  until  he  was  set  at 
liberty. 

The  story  which  Surratt  gives  in  hisRockville,  Md.,  lecture,  which 
bears  throughout  the  marks  of  the  "  fine  Italian  hand  "  of  the  Jesuit, 
and  which  is  contradicted  in  all  of  its  most  important  points  by  the 
whole  run  of  the  testimony  in  the  two  trials,  had  no  doubt  been 
accepted  by  his  counsel  as  true,  and  hence  they  would  hear  no 
testimony  that  conflicted  with  it;  but  were  ready  to  accept  any 
evidence  whatever,  without  regard  to  the  character  of  the  witnesses, 
that  corroborated  it.  This,  in  the  opinion  of  the  author,  is  the  most 
charitable  construction  that  can  be  put  upon  their  conduct  in  the 
management  of  their  case.  Their  eyes  were  blinded  by  their  all 
controlling  prejudices,  and  bitter  opposition  to  the  course  of  the 
government  in  sending  Surratt's  co-conspirators  before  a  military 
commission  for  trial.  We  shall  now  proceed  to  give  the  evidence 
of  their  feelings  toward  the  government  in  this  matter.  They  could 
apparently  find  no  words  bitter  enough  to  express  their  abhorrence 
of  the  trial  by  a  commission. 

As  John  H.  Surratt  and  his  mother  were  bound  up  in  the  same 
bundle  by  all  the  testimony  in  the  case,  and  his  mother  had  been 
found  guilty  upon  this  testimony  by  the  court  before  which  she 
was  tried,  his  counsel  seemed  to  feel  the  necessity  of  getting  rid  of 
the  effect  of  this  fact,  in  its  bearing  on  their  case.  That  I  may 


268  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

not  be  accused  of  doing  them  injustice  in  presenting  their  mode  of 
doing  this,  I  will  let  them  speak  for  themselves. 

In  the  examination  of  jurors  on  their  voire  dire,  Mr.  Pierrepont 
asked  the  question:  ''Have  you  formed  any  opinion  in  regard  to 
the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  other  conspirators?"  The  question 
was  objected  to  by  the  counsel  for  the  defense,  and  Mr.  Merrick, 
to  sustain  his  objection,  said,  among  other  things :  "  I  presume 
there  is  scarcely  a  gentleman  in  the  United  States  who  has  not 
formed  and  expressed  the  opinion  that  Booth  shot  Lincoln.  I 
apprehend  there  are  very  few  who  have  not  formed  and  expressed 
an  opinion  that  the  mother  of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  suffered 
death  without  competent  testimony  to  convict  her,  and  so  we 
might  go  through  in  an  inquiry  in  relation  to  all  the  others."  In 
replying,  Mr.  Pierrepont  said:  "The  reason  urged  by  my  learned 
friend  against  it  is,  that  he  believes,  I  do  not  know  but  that  he 
asserts,  that  there  are  very  few  in  the  United  States  who  do  not 
believe  that  Mrs.  Surratt  was  illegally  executed.  Therefore  we 
could  not  get  a  jury  competent  to  try  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  if 
this  question  is  allowed  to  be  put. " 

Mr.  Merrick  [interrupting].  "  My  brother  will  allow  me  to  say 
that  he  did  not  state  my  entire  proposition.  I  said  there  were  few 
intelligent  persons  in  the  United  States  who  had  not  formed  an 
opinion  upon  the  question  of  Booth's  participation  in  the  killing  of 
Lincoln  ;  and  there  were  also,  I  presumed,  but  few  persons  who  had 
not  formed  an  opinion  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had  been  executed  upon 
insufficient  evidence.  " 

Mr.  Pierrepont.  "  Precisely;  that  is  the  very  statement,  except 
that  my  friend  has  made  it  a  little  stronger  than  I  did. 

"  I  did  not  intend  to  overstate  it,  as  there  is  nothing  gained  by 
overstatement,  but  it  seems  I  did  not  come  up  to  the  mark."  ,  .  . 

In  his  opening  for  the  defense,  Mr.  Joseph  H.  Bradley,  Jr.,  said: 
"We  have  at  last  arrived  at  that  stage  of  this  case  when  an  oppor 
tunity  is  afforded  the  prisoner  for  saying  something  by  way  of 
defense,  not  only  of  his  own  character,  his  own  reputation,  his  life 
and  his  honor,  but  also  as  it  shall  rise  incidentally  in  this  discussion 
of  this  evidence  before  you,  something  in  the  way  of  vindicating 
the  pure  fame  of  his  departed  mother.  "  Again.  "  As  to  Mrs. 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          269 

Surratt  we  hope  to  satisfy  you  that  a  grave  error  has  been  made 
in  her  case.  "  Again  Mr.  Merrick,  in  his  argument  on  the  motion 
to  strike  out  certain  testimony,  said:  "  The  counsel  had  said,  if  it 
was  anything  favorable,  the  defense  would  insist  on  it;  if  anything 
unfavorable,  they  would  not  desire  it.  All  he  had  to  say  in  reply 
was,  that  he  would  insist  on  the  free  confession  of  all  who  had 
testified  in  the  case,  if  he  could  get  it.  He  would  like  to  have  had 
the  privilege  of  putting  in  whatever  this  poor  boy's  butchered 
mother  said,  but  had  not.  When  he  offered  what  she  said,  counsel 
on  the  other  side  said,  '  No,  you  cannot  prove  that.  We  can 
prove  what  she  said  that  will  benefit  the  state,  but  you  shall  not 
throw  the  mantle  of  a  mother's  declarations  over  the  child  standing 
in  the  prisoner's  dock.'  Had  we  been  allowed,  we  would  have 
proved  her  declarations  —  proved  them  when  tottering  from  the 
dungeon  to  the  scaffold,  with  the  world  behind  her,  and  nothing  in 
the  front  but  that  God  before  whom  she  was  shortly  to  appear,  and 
before  whom  she  solemnly  asseverated  that  she  was  innocent 
of  the  crime  for  which  she  was  being  killed.  " 

To  all  these  charges  and  assumptions  the  District  Attorney,  in  his 
argument  upon  the  evidence,  replied  as  follows:  ''Well,  I  do  most 
kindly  but  most  respectfully  and  emphatically  repudiate  the  unjust 
imputation  that  Mary  E.  Surratt  has  been  murdered,  as  was  alleged 
by  one  of  the  counsel,  and  butchered  as  alleged  by  another. 
W'here  is  the  evidence  to  justify  it?  If  they  have  a  right  to  make 
this  accusation,  have  we  not  a  right  to  reply  to  it?  For  what  pur 
pose  was  it  introduced  before  this  jury?  Is  it  to  appeal  to  your 
prejudices?  I  make  no  such  accusation  against  the  gentlemen; 
they  charge  it  home  upon  us  when  they  say  a  murdered  and  a 
butchered  woman.  I  deny  it,  and  I  undertake  to  prove  to  the 
contrary.  " 

Mr.  Bradley,  interrupting,  said  "  he  supposed  this  threw  the  whole 
subject  open  for  discussion."  The  District  Attorney  rejoined : 
"  It  had  been  introduced  by  the  learned  gentlemen  on  the  other 
side.  "  Mr.  Bradley  replied  "  that  he  was  not  aware  what  evi 
dence  there  was  on  which  this  question  could  be  discussed.  But 
if  it  was  understood  that  the  whole  subject  was  open,  and  that  the 
counsel  for  the  prisoner  could  not  be  interrupted  in  their  discussion 
of  it,  he  was  satisfied." 


2/O  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

The  District  Attorney.  "  Then  why  make  allusion  to  it  in  the 
first  instance?  Who  cast  the  first  stone  in  the  presence  of  this 
jury? 

"  I  regret  that  it  should  have  been  necessary  for  an  American 
woman  to  be  executed  by  the  judgment  of  an  American  tribunal. 
That  verdict  has  been  rendered  by  an  American  tribunal,  and  the 
consequence  of  it  was  the  execution  of  an  American  woman.  I 
know  the  character  of  the  American  people.  I  know  that  imagin 
ation  revolts  at  the  execution  of  one  of  the  tender  sex.  But  when 
the  daughter  of  Herodias  murdered  John  the  Baptist,  she  deserved 
death.  When  Lucretia  Borgia  darkened  the  history  of  her  country 
by  her  horrid  crimes,  she  deserved  death.  And  when  Mary  E. 
Surratt  murdered  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  great  moral  hero  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  the  patriot  and  philanthropist  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  she  deserved  death.  There  is  no  man  who  has  a 
heart  more  capable  of  love  for  woman  than  myself.  But  when  she 
unsexes  herself,  when  she  conceives,  when  she  encourages,  when 
she  urges  on,  and  is  instrumental  in  committing  the  crime  of  mur 
der,  she  places  herself  beyond  the  pale  of  protection.  The  best 
wife  who  ever  lived,  according  to  Milton,  our  great  mother  Eve,  is 
thus  represented  as  speaking  to  her  husband:  — 

"  '  What  thou  biddest, 
Unargued  I  obey;   so  God  ordains: 
God  is  thy  law,  thou  mine.' 

"  I  believe  in  submission  on  the  part  of  women ;  submission  to 
her  God,  to  the  laws  of  her  country  and  to  her  husband.  But 
when  a  woman  opens  her  house  to  murderers  and  conspirators, 
infuses  the  poison  of  her  own  malice  into  their  hearts,  and  urges 
them  to  the  crime  of  murder  and  treason,  I  say  boldly,  as  an 
American  officer,  public  safety,  public  duty,  requires  that  an 
example  be  made  of  her  conduct.  Murder !  gentlemen  of  the 
jury.  Who  composed  that  military  commission?  They  are  no 
better  men  than  you  are,  but  you  will  not  be  offended  with  me 
if  I  say  they  are  as  good  men  as  you  are,  or  I,  or  any  of  us." 
Naming  over  the  officers  who  constituted  the  tribunal  by  which 
Mrs.  Surratt  was  tried,  he  continued  :  "  I  say,  gentlemen  of  the 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          2/1 

jury,  that  they  are  good  men,  holding  commissions  under  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  and  they  are  presumed  to  be 
honorable  men.  The  law  declares  that  every  private  citizen,  and 
every  public  officer  who  is  a  servant  of  the  American  people,  is 
presumed  to  be  honorable  until  the  contrary  is  proved. 

"  Your  officers,  your  men,  your  representatives  in  the  American 
army,  in  an  accusation  which  will  travel  upon  the  telegraph  wires 
perhaps  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  world  have  been  denounced,  if 
not  expressly,  by  implication,  as  murderers  and  butchers  who  took 
the  life  of  an  innocent  woman.  If  so,  when  you  come  to  try  them, 
and  you  believe  it,  say  it,  but  it  is  not  the  question  submitted  to 
you  now.  She  may  be  innocent  and  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  be 
guilty;  the  subject  was  introduced  collaterally  by  the  learned 
counsel,  for  what  purpose  I  know  not,  except  for  effect.  Before 
you  brand  these  gentlemen  with  the  character  of  murderers,  see 
that  you  have  relevant  grounds  to  act  upon.  Take  care,  or  you 
may  be  placed  in  the  same  situation ;  I  have  not  charged  it,  and 
I  do  not  think  my  friends  would,  upon  reflection,  charge  men  who 
are  placed  in  such  a  solemn  obligation  with  such  a  dereliction  of 
duty.  It  has  been  said  that  this  has  been  pronounced  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  an  illegal  tribunal.  What 
has  that  to  do  with  the  action  of  these  officers?  What  has  that 
to  do  with  your  action?  What  pertinency  can  it  have  to  the  issue 
now  submitted  to  you  for  your  decision?  But,  gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  let  us  first  consider  the  character  of  this  crime,  and  then  I 
will  consider  briefly  the  connection  of  Mrs.  Surratt  with  it.  I  do 
not  desire  to  say  much  about  her;  she  has  gone  to  her  grave, 
and  her  spirit  has  passed  before  her  Eternal  Judge." 

After  recounting  the  character  of  the  crime,  the  District  At 
torney  thus  refers  to  Mrs.  Surratt's  connection  with  it :  "  Now, 
gentlemen  of  the  jury,  let  us  view  the  connection  of  Mrs.  Mary 
E.  Surratt  with  this  assassination.  I  feel  the  delicacy  of  the 
ground  upon  which  I  stand.  I  know  the  situation.  I  know  that 
you  dislike  to  consider  this  question,  which  has  been  forced  upon 
you.  I  do  not  want  to  do  it.  My  duty  is  to  prosecute  the  pris 
oner,  but  one  of  the  counsel  has  said  she  was  murdered,  and 
another  that  she  was  butchered,  and  it  therefore  becomes  my 


ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

duty  to  trace  her  connection  with  this  crime,  and  then  leave  it  to 
you  to  say  whether  she  was  guilty  (though  not  relevant  to  this 
case)  of  the  crime  for  which  she  suffered.  First,  I  call  your 
attention  to  a  fact  to  which  we  have  already  adverted ;  that  her 
house,  541,  was  the  rendezvous  for  these  conspirators.  Now, 
gentlemen,  will  you  pause  for  a  moment,  and  let  me  ask  you  how 
you  can  reconcile  it  with  innocence?  You  remember  the  law, 
that  it  is  not  how  much  a  party  did,  but  whether  she  had  anything 
to  do  with  it.  Can  you,  I  say,  reconcile  it  with  innocence  that 
this  woman's  house  should  have  been  the  rendezvous  of  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  Lewis  Payne,  Atzerodt,  Herold,  and  John  H.  Sur- 
ratt?  Would  you  not  know  by  intuition?  Would  you  not  know 
by  their  conversation?  Would  not  your  judgment  and  your  hearts 
tell  you  who  they  were  and  what  they  contemplated? 

That  is  the  great  central  truth,  which  I  defy  the  learned  counsel 
for  the  defense  successfully  to  assail.  Secondly,  who  furnished 
the  arms  with  which  the  bloody  deed  was  done?  .  .  .  The 
woman  who  puts  an  arm  into  the  hand  of  her  lover,  her  son,  her 
brother,  or  her  husband,  who  urges  him  on  to  the  deed,  by  the 
law  of  God  and  of  man  is  equally  guilty  with  the  one  who  with  his 
own  hand  perpetrates  the  crime.  According  to  the  testimony  of 
John  M.  Lloyd  this  is  shown.  Do  you  believe  him  or  disbelieve 
him?  My  friend,  Mr.  Bradley,  who  opened  this  case  said  he  was 
a  common  drunkard ;  but  mark  you,  he  was  an  attendant  and 
friend  of  Mrs.  Surratt." 

Mr.  Bradley.     "Who  says  so?  " 

The  District  Attorney.  "  I  will  prove  it.  When  I  was  examin 
ing  that  witness,  and  proposed  to  ask  him  certain  questions  in 
reference  to  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Surratt,  he  said,  '  Mr.  Carrington,'  for 
he  knew  me  personally,  '  I  don't  wish  to  speak  about  Mrs.  Sur 
ratt,  for  she  is  not  on  trial.'  I  said  '  Go  on,  Mr.  Lloyd.'  He 
declined.  I  applied  to  the  Court,  and  the  Court  said  that  it  was 
his  duty  to  answer.  He  saw  her  continually.  He  lived  in  her 
house ;  he  drank  her  liquor.  Why,  this  evidence  shows  that  John 
H.  Surratt,  Herold,  and  John  M.  Lloyd  played  cards  and  drank 
together.  .  .  .  But  says  the  friend  and  companion  of  the 
prisoner  at  the  bar, — the  confiding  and  confidential  agent  of  his 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          2?$ 

mother,  unwilling  to  testify  against  her  when  put  on  the  solemn? 
sanction  of  an  oath,  but  when  required  to  do  so  he  speaks  out, — 
he  says  certain  arms  were  furnished  him  by  the  prisoner  at  the 
bar ;  that  he  concealed  them,  the  prisoner  showing  him  where 
they  could  be  safely  concealed,  he  protesting  at  the  time  against 
it,  protesting  that  it  might  get  him  into  some  personal  difficulty, 
The  mother  knew  of  the  transaction,  for  on  the  iith  of  April  we 
have  Lloyd's  own  testimony ;  she  asked  him  where  those  shooting- 
irons  were,  and  said  they  might  soon  be  needed,  or  words  to  that 
effect.  But  I  am  going  too  fast,  for  I  do  not  desire  to  speak  to 
confuse  you.  I  say,  first,  that  her  house  is  the  rendezvous;  and 
that,  secondly,  she  furnishes  arms,  or  knows  of  their  being 
furnished.  On  the  night  of  the  izj-th  of  April,  Booth  and  Hcrold 
returned,  and  are  leaving  the  city  of  Washington  in  flight  for  their 
lives.  At  Surrattsville  they  called  for  whiskey  from  the  agent  and 
friend  of  the  prisoner  and  his  mother.  She  gives  them  a  home, 
gives  them  arms,  gives  them  whiskey,  not  to  nerve  them  but  to 
refresh  them  after  the  commission  of  their  horrid  crime. 

"But  Booth,  in  making  his  escape,  needs  something  more  than 
whiskey  and  arms. 

"  It  is  necessary  that  he  should  secrete  himself  as  he  traveled 
through  the  country,  and  that  he  should  see  persons  approaching 
him  from  an  immense  distance,  he  needs  a  field-glass,  and  has  it 
delivered  to  him  by  his  friend  and  agent,  Mrs.  Surratt.  "  With  the 
defense  no  witness  told  the  truth  whose  testimony  went  to  convict 
their  client,  whilst  the  stories  of  the  most  infamous  men,  self-con 
fessed  scoundrels  and  accomplices  after  the  fact,  if  not  before,  such 
as  Father  Boucher,  and  Reverend  Cameron,  must  be  taken  as 
gospel  truth.1  In  the  face  of  all  this  testimony  the  counsel  for 
the  defense  again  bring  their  false  accusations  against  the  govern 
ment.  Mr.  Merrick  in  the  course  of  his  argument,  said  :  "  Does 
the  Attorney  General  feel  that  public  justice  demands  that  he 
should  employ  assistant  counsel  in  this  case,  or  is  there  somebody 
else  behind?"  .  .  .  "  Are  there  any  other  officers  of  the  federal 
government  that  have  purposes  to  accomplish  in  this  case?  Says 

1  See  testimony  of  Father  Boucher,  Trial  of  Surratt,  p.  895,  and  onward.  Also- 
testimony  of  Rev.  Stephen  F.  Cameron,  p.  793  and  onward.  Trial  of  Surratt. 


2/4  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

the  learned  attorney  on  the  other  side  (Mr.  Pierrepont)  m  a 
speech  delivered  I  think  before  you  were  impaneled:  — 

"'It  has  likewise  been  circulated  through  all  the  public  journals 
that  after  the  former  convictions,  when  an  effort  was  made  to  go  to 
the  President  for  pardon,  men,  active  here  at  the  seat  of  govern 
ment,  prevented  any  attempt  being  made,  or  the  President  even 
being  reached  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  whether  he  would  not 
exercise  clemency;  whereas  the  truth,  and  the  truth  of  record, 
which  will  be  presented  in  this  court  is,  that  all  this  matter  was 
brought  before  the  President,  and  presented  to  a  full  cabinet  meet 
ing,  where  it  was  thoroughly  discussed,  and,  after  such  discussion, 
condemnation,  and  execution  received  not  only  the  sanction  of  the 
President,  but  that  of  every  member  of  his  cabinet.  This  and  a 
thousand  others  of  these  false  stories  will  be  all  set  at  rest  forever 
in  the  progress  of  this  trial ;  and  the  gentlemen  may  feel  assured 
that  not  only  are  we  ready,  but  that  we  are  desirous  of  proceeding 
at  once  with  the  case.'  Now  if  this  declaration  of  my  learned 
brother  on  the  other  side  is  correct,  this  trial  was  not  entered 
upon  for  the  purpose  alone  of  inquiring  into  the  guilt  or  innocence 
of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar.  It  was  not  entered  upon  because 
public  justice  demanded  his  arraignment,  before  you,  gentlemen, 
but  in  order  that  a  thousand  false  stories  about  men  high  in  office 
might  be  settled  at  his  expense. 

"  Then,  although  my  learned  brother  is  here  under  appointment 
by  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States,  yet  it  is  an  appoint 
ment  which  probably  had  its  origin  in  the  stimulus  of  some  private 
ieeling  lying  behind.  He  comes  here,  not  to  try  this  case  alone, 
but  he  comes  here  to  set  at  rest  certain  false  stories.  Has  he 
done  it?"  .  .  .  "Where  is  your  record?  Why  didn't  you  bring 
it  in?  Did  you  find  at  the  end  of  the  record  a  recommendation  to 
mercy  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Surratt  that  the  President  never  saw? 
You  had  the  record  here  in  court.  " 

Mr.  Bradley.      "And  offered  it  once  and  withdrew  it." 

Mr.  Mcrrick.  "Yes,  sir,  offered  it  and  then  withdrew  it.  Did 
you  find  anything  at  the  close  of  it  that  you  did  not  like?  Why 
didn't  you  put  that  record  in  evidence,  and  let  us  have  it  here? 
We  were  not  going  to  quarrel  about  it ;  we  would  like  to  know  all 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE,          275 

we  can  about  the  dark  secrets  of  those  chambers  whose  doors  are 
closed,  but  from  which  light  enough  creeps  to  make  us  anxious 
to  look  within.  We  only  know  enough  to  make  us  curious ;  but 
that  is  enough  to  make  us  feel.  You  were  going  to  show,  too, 
that  nobody  prevented  access  to  the  President  on  the  part  of  those 
who  waited  to  get  a  pardon.  Why  didn't  you  do  it?  Gentlemen 
of  the  jury,  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  heard  that  proof. 
They  have  brought  these  charges  into  the  case  and  I  must  meet 
them  as  part  of  the  case.  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  heard 
that  proof.  Who  of  you  who  was  in  the  city  of  Washington, 
will  ever  forget  that  fatal  day  when  the  tolling  of  the  bells  reminded 
you  of  the  sad  fact  that  the  hour  had  come  when  those  people 
were  to  be  hung?  Your  honor  (referring  to  Justice  Wylie, 
who  was  at  the  time  sitting  beside  Judge  Fisher  on  the  bench), 
in  your  praise  be  it  said,  raised  your  judicial  hand  to  prevent 
that  murder,  but  it  was  too  weak.  The  storm  beat  against  your 
arm,  and  it  fell  powerless  in  the  tempest.  You  remember  that 
day,  gentlemen.  Twenty-four  hours  for  preparation.  The  echoes 
of  the  announcement  of  impending  death,  scarcely  dying  away 
before  the  tramp  of  the  approaching  guard  was  heard  leading  to 
the  gallows.  Priest,  friend,  philanthrophist,  and  clergyman  went 
to  the  Executive  Mansion  to  get  access  to  the  President,  to  implore 
for  that  poor  woman  three  days  respite  to  prepare  her  soul  to  meet 
her  God,  but  got  no  access.  The  heart-broken  child  —  the  poor 
daughter  —  went  there  crazed,  and,  stretched  upon  the  steps  that 
lead  to  the  Executive  chamber,  she  raised  her  hands  in  agony 
and  prayed  to  every  one  that  came,  '  O  God  !  let  me  have  access, 
that  I  may  ask  for  but  one  day  for  my  poor  mother  —  just  one 
day.'  Did  she  get  there?  No.  And  yet,  says  the  counsel, 
there  was  no  one  to  prevent  access  being  had.  Why  don't  you 
prove  it?  O,  God  !  if  such  a  thing  could  have  been  proved,  how 
would  I  not  have  rejoiced  in  that  fact ;  for  when  reflecting  upon 
that  sad,  unfortunate,  wretched  hour  in  the  history  of  my  country 
—  an  hour  when  I  feel  she  was  so  much  degraded,  I  could  weep 
until  the  paper  be  worn  away  with  the  continual  dropping  of  my 
tears.  Who  stood  between  her  and  the  seat  of  mercy?  Has 
conscience  lashed  the  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Military  Justice? 


2/6  ASSASSWATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

[Gen.  Joseph  Holt.]  Does  memory  haunt  the  Secretary  of 
War?  Or  is  it  true  that  one  who  stood  between  her  and  Executive 
clemency  now  sleeps  in  the  dark  waters  of  the  Hudson,  while 
another  died  by  his  own  violent  hand  in  Kansas? 

"The  learned  gentleman  is  right.  He  did  come  here  to  put 
these  things  at  rest,  or  to  endeavor  to  put  them  at  rest ;  but  he  could 
not  do  it.  What  else  is  there  in  this  case  to  show  a  feeling  behind, 
besides  public  justice  impelling  to  conviction?  Gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  as  the  counsel  has  stated  in  his  speech,  public  rumors  had 
gone  abroad,  and  certain  grave  charges  had  been  made.  You 
know  that  political  accusations  had  been  brought  against  Judge 
Holt,  Mr.  Bingham,  and  the  Secretary  of  WTar,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  that  it  had  become  a  political  matter."  (Mr. 
Merrick  here  referred  to  an  effort  that  had  been  made  by  rebel 
sympathizers  in  Congress  to  make  political  capital  out  of  this 
transaction.)  "There  were  parts  of  those  accusations  that  the 
learned  counsel  was  going  to  put  at  rest.  Where  is  the  proof? 
The  proof  is  in  this ;  follow  me  for  a  moment. 

"  I  said  I  would  show  there  was  a  conspiracy  on  conspiracy. 
What  has  the  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Military  Justice  got  to  do  with 
this  case?  Does  not  your  honor  hold  an  independent  court?  Is 
not  the  judicial  tribunal  of  the  land  separate  from  the  executive? 
Is  it  not  a  fundamental  principle  of  American  constitutional  law  that 
the  executive  and  judicial  departments  shall  be  distinct  and  separate? 
The  Bureau  of  Military  Justice  is  a  part  of  the  executive  depart 
ment.  What  has  he  to  do  with  this  case?  Nothing,  says  the 
counsel.  Is  he  counsel?  we  ask.  No,  say  they.  Why,  then,  is  he 
manipulating  their  witnesses  in  this  case?  Smoot,  one  of  their  wit 
nesses,  tells  you  that  he  is  called  up  before  Judge  Holt,  with  ten 
others,  examined,  and  his  examination  was  taken  down  in  writing. 
The  day  after  giving  his  testimony  he  comes  back  and  says  that 
it  was  not  Judge  Holt  that  examined  him,  but  was  somebody  else. 

"  I  pressed  him,  pressed  him  hard,  as  to  the  place  and  time.  He 
then  recollected  it  was  in  the  Winder  Building,  opposite  the  War 
Department ;  and  when  I  pressed  him  still  further,  he  had  to  say  that 
the  office  he  was  in  had  written  over  the  door  '  Judge  Advocate 
General's  office. '  Again  I  ask  what  had  the  Judge  Advocate 


TREATMENT    OF    WITNESSES   BY   THE   DEFENSE. 


277 


General  to  do  with  this  case?  Not  only  was  Smoot  there,  but 
Norton  was  there,  and  God  only  knows  how  many  more.  It  is 
apparent,  then,  that  he  has  taken  a  deep  interest  in  this  case.  Why 
is  he  taking  such  an  interest?  It  is  certainly  indiscreet  He  has 
lost  his  prudence  and  he  has  lost  his  discretion  ;  he  has  lost  his  judg 
ment  thus  to  expose  himself  and  his  office  in  a  criminal  prosecution. 

"  Mr.  District  Attorney,  gird  up  your  loins  and  answer  me. 
Whose  discretion  is  broken  down?  Whose  prudence  is  betrayed? 
Is  there  anybody  else's  heart  at  which  the  vulture  gnaws?  Is  there 
any  high  and  great  man  who  is  forgetting  the  dignity  of  his  office 
and  the  duties  of  a  moral  creature  so  far  as  to  descend  to  the  prepara 
tion  of  witnesses  with  which  he  has  nothing  to  do  to  satiate  his  hunger 
with  the  blood  of  an  innocent  being?  .  .  .  But  I  am  now  speak 
ing  of  the  Bureau  of  Military  Justice.  He  you  know  has  furnished 
the  evidence  in  this  case." 

Mr.  Merrick  then  went  on  to  charge  the  government  with  pre 
paring  and  presenting  evidence  against  Surratt  that  it  knew  to  be 
false,  and  then  proceeded  as  follows:  "No  matter  whether  they 
knew  the  truth  in  this  case  or  not,  prudence  has  been  betrayed  ; 
discretion  has  been  broken  down  ;  courage  has  been  conquered. 
Following  on  Judge  Pierrepont's  declaration,  which  I  have  read  to 
you,  and  these  circumstances,  comes  Mr.  Carrington,  breaking  the 
cerements  of  the  tomb,  and  demanding  your  verdict  against  Mrs. 
Surratt.  In  God's  name  isn't  it  enough  to  try  the  living?  Will 
you  play  the  gnome,  and  bring  her  from  the  cold,  cold  earth  and 
hang  her  corpse?  Bring  her  in  ;  but  there  is  no  occasion  for  doing 
so  ;  she  is  here  already.  We  have  felt  our  blood  run  cold  as  the 
rustling  of  the  garments  from  the  grave  swept  by  us.  Her  spirit 
moves  about,  and  the  Judge  Advocate  General  and  all  these  men 
may  understand  that  it  is  the  eternal  law  of  God,  though',  so  far  as 
men  are  concerned,  fresh  and  innocent  blood  may  apparently  vin 
dicate  innocent  blood  previously  shed,  yet  the  spirit  will  still  walk 
beside  them. 

"  He  may  shudder  before  her,  because  she  is  with  him  by  day 
and  by  night ;  and  he  may  say  — 

"  '  Avaunt  and  quit  my  sight !     Let  the  earth  hide  thee; 
Thy  bones  are  marrowless;    thy  blood  is  cold.' 


2/8  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

But  the  cold  blood  and  marrowless  bones  are  still  beside  him, 
and  her  whisperings  are  presaging  that  great  judgment  day  when 
all  men  shall  stand  equal  before  the  throne  of  God,  and  when  Mrs. 
Surratt  is  called  to  testify  against  Joseph  Holt,  what  will  he  in  vin 
dication  say? 

"  Mr.  Carrington,  your  honor,  has  gone  outside  of  this  record,  and 
I  must  follow  him  to  some  extent,  at  least.  He  has  gone  outside 
of  it  in  speaking  of  the  military  commission,  defending  the  major 
generals  and  others.  I  am  glad  I  recurred  to  it,  for  it  reminds  me 
of  a  statement  of  his  that  I  desire  to  correct.  He  says  we  accused 
those  honorable  men  of  murder.  No,  sir;  I  refrain  from  any  ex 
pression  of  opinion  on  that  subject.  It  is  true  the  most  exalted 
judicial  tribunal  in  the  world,  vindicating  the  liberty  of  American 
citizens  and  their  constitutional  rights  against  military  authority, 
and  maintaining  the  supremacy  of  the  courts  over  military  law,  have 
pronounced  that,  and  all  other  commissions  similarly  constituted,  to 
be  illegal ;  but  what  I  denounce  here  is  not  the  men  who  in  judg 
ment  sat  there,  but  the  men  conducting  the  trial,  and  who  with  this 
diary  of  Booth  in  their  hands  could  have  proved  Mrs.  Surratt's 
innocence  by  showing  this  conspiracy  to  have  been  organized  on 
the  1 4th  day  of  April,  but  who,  though  producing  the  toothpick 
and  the  penknife  found  on  Booth,  yet  never  so  much  as  disclosed 
the  fact  that  such  a  diary  existed. 

"  They  never  made  it  known  to  those  men  or  to  the  country. 
Do  they  not  deserve  to  be  denounced?  Now  that  it  has  become 
known  to  the  country,  they  come  in  before  this  jury  to  get  them, 
with  the  diary  in  evidence  before  them,  to  find  the  same  verdict 
that  the  military  commission  found. 

"  I  put  a  question  to  a  witness  on  that  stand  (referring  to  Father 
Walter)  and  asked  him,  *  Did  you  administer  the  consolations  of 
religion  to  Mrs.  Surratt?'  'I  did.  I  gave  her  communion  on 
Friday,  and  prepared  her  for  death.  '  I  asked  him,  '  Did  she  tell 
you  as  she  was  marching  to  the  scaffold  that  she  was  an  innocent 
woman?'  I  told  him  not  to  answer  the  question  before  I  directed 
him  to.  He  nodded  his  head,  but  he  did  not  answer  the  question, 
because  he  had  no  right  to,  as  the  other  side  objected.  If  you  are 
going  to  try  that  woman,  and  she  being  dead  is  unable  to  be  here 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          2/9 

to  defend  herself,  can  you  not  at  least  have  charity  enough  to  let 
her  last  words  come  in  in  her  defence?  Will  you  try  one  who  is 
not  only  absent  from  the  court,  but  is  dead?  While  trying  one 
that  is  dead,  will  you  deny  to  her  the  poor  privilege  of  having  the 
last  word  she  uttered  on  earth  spoken  in  her  vindication  ?  Were 
you  afraid  of  it?  Did  you  feel  that  the  words  would  sink  deep 
into  the  hearts  of  everybody  that  was  here  in  this  room,  and  in 
the  United  States,  and  cause  to  well  up  from  that  heart  a  fountain 
of  mercy,  rich  and  pure  as  the  fountain  that  sprang  from  the  rock 
at  the  bidding  of  the  sacred  rod  ?  Shame  on  you  !  Prepared  for 
the  world  to  come,  and  marching  to  the  scaffold,  with  her  God 
before  her  and  the  world  behind  her,  and  a  load  of  sin  laid  at  the 
feet  of  Almighty  God,  and  no  hope  but  in  that  eternal  mercy  upon 
which  we  must  all  rely,  I  ask  whether  she  cannot  at  such  an  hour 
speak  for  herself?  No!  you  answer.  Why  not?  is  it  likely  she 
would  lie?  No,  gentlemen,  they  will  not  say  that.  Then  why  is 
it?  They  did  not  want  to  hear  it.  Oh,  they  must  indeed  be 
hardened  of  heart,  reckless  of  guilt,  and  indifferent  to  justice.  But 
although  they  had  no  desire  to  hear  it,  they  do  hear  it,  and  you 
hear  it,  for  as  that  voice  spoke  then,  it  speaks  now,  and  will  con 
tinue  to  speak  until  justice  is  meted  out.  It  whispers  and  is 
heard.  It  descends  upon  the  head  of  that  boy,  and  breaths  on 
each  of  your  hearts  Yes,  gentlemen,  that  woman  in  the  nameless 
grave  in  yonder  arsenal  yard,  the  cerements  of  which  have  been 
broken  by  the  government,  comes  here  to  vindicate  her  child.  'A 
nameless  grave'  did  I  say?  Yes,  alas!  too  true.  Aye,  sir,  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  ordinary  feelings  of  humanity  and  common 
respect  for  the  dead,  to  say  nothing  of  regard  for  the  honor  of  our 
country  and  sympathy  for  the  sufferings  of  a  distracted  and  loving 
daughter,  would  suggest  to  those  pressing  the  prosecution  (and 
who  have  charge  of  the  matter)  to  allow  this  poor  girl  the  privilege 
of  paying  a  simple  tribute  to  a  mother's  love  by  having  her  remains 
removed  from  a  felon's  grave.  Yes  !  there  that  mother  lies  in  a 
nameless  grave,  on  which  no  flower  is  allowed  to  be  strewn  by 
that  heart-broken  daughter,  who  for  the  past  two  years  has  been 
earnestly  pleading  that  she  might  have  the  privilege  of  placing 
those  last  sad,  and  to  her,  sacred  relics,  where  filial  love  might 
weep  the  tear,  and  a  filial  hand  plant  a  flower  on  the  tomb." 


2 SO  ASSASSINATWA'   OF  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Merrick  then  went  on  to  meet  the  argument  that  Surratt 
had  confessed  his  guilt  by  flight  by  declaring  that  the  mad  pas 
sions  of  the  hour,  and  tyrannical  usurpations  of  the  government  in 
its  method  of  dealing  with  those  charged  with  this  crime,  by  send 
ing  them  before  a  military  commission  instead  of  a  civil  court  for 
trial,  justified  him  in  his  flight. 

He  then  went  on  to  vindicate  the  Catholic  Church,  which  he 
claimed  had  been  assailed  in  this  matter.  The  only  reference  to 
the  Catholic  Church  in  connection  with  this  trial  had  been  made 
in  the  public  press.  The  prosecution  had  carefully  abstained  from 
any  assault  on  that  church,  and  had  tried  to  exclude  religious 
prejudices  from  the  minds  of  the  jurors. 

Mr.  Merrick,  however,  seized  the  occasion  to  pass  an  eulogium 
on  that  church,  in  which  he  showed  as  much  disregard  for  the 
facts  of  history  as  he  did  for  the  proven  facts  in  this  case.  Per 
haps  he  felt  this  vindication  to  be  called  for  from  the  fact  that 
most  of  the  conspirators  were  Catholics  in  religion,  and  the  further 
fact  that  the  friends  who  waited  and  watched  for  the  return  of  his 
client  to  Montreal  after  the  assassination,  and  who,  on  his  return, 
spirited  him  away  and  kept  him  secreted  for  five  months  and  then 
helped  him  off  to  Italy,  where  he  was  found  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Pope's  army,  and  who  voluntarily  came  before  the  court  on  his 
trial  to  testify,  and  to  procure  testimony  in  his  behalf,  were  priests 
of  that  church.  In  his  eulogium  on  that  church  he  forgot  to 
mention  the  fact  that  the  Pope  during  the  progress  of  the  war 
acknowledged  the  Southern  Confederacy  and  wrote  a  sympathizing 
letter  to  Jefferson  Davis,  in  which  he  called  him  his  dear  son  and 
by  implication  denounced  President  Lincoln  as  a  tyrant.  He  could 
scarcely  have  forgotten  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  had  sought  to  take 
advantage  of  the  arduous  struggle  in  which  our  government  was 
engaged  for  the  preservation  of  its  life,  to  establish  a  Catholic  Em 
pire  in  Mexico,  and  had  sent  Maximillian,  a  Catholic  prince,  to 
reign  over  that,  at  that  time,  unhappy  people,  under  the  protection 
of  the  arms  of  France,  lent  to  the  furtherance  of  his  unholy  purpose 
by  the  last  loyal  son  of  the  church  that  ever  occupied  a  throne  in 
Europe.  Perhaps  he  did  not  realize  that  it  was  God  who  frus 
trated  the  last  grasp  of  the  drowning  man  at  a  straw  that  eluded 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          281 

his  grasp,  by  preparing  for  his  holiness,  the  Pope,  and  for  Louis 
Napoleon  just  at  that  moment  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  which 
resulted  in  the  final  loss  of  his  temporal  power  to  the  Pope  and 
with  it  his  grip  on  the  world,  and  of  his  empire  and  crown  to  the 
last  servile  supporter  of  his  temporal  pretensions.  To  claim  for 
that  church,  as  Mr.  Merrick  did,  friendship  to  civil  liberty,  respect 
for  the  rights  of  conscience  and  of  private  judgment,  and  love  for 
our  republican  institutions,  is  to  ignore,  or  set  at  naught,  all  the 
dogmas  of  that  church  on  the  above  questions  and  all  the  claims 
of  the  Papacy.  Mr.  Merrick  manifestly  thought  that  the  attitude 
of  the  Catholic  clergy  toward  the  assassination  of  the  President 
could  be  hidden  from  public  view  by  his  fulsome  eulogy. 

The  appeals  made  by  the  eminent  counsel  for  the  prisoner  to 
the  political  and  religious  prejudices  of  jurors  was  ably  seconded 
all  through  the  trial  by  the  Jesuit  priesthood  of  Washington  City 
and  the  vicinity.  It  will  be  recalled  by  scores  of  people  who 
attended  the  trial  that  not  a  day  passed  but  that  some  of  these 
were  in  the  court-room  as  the  most  interested  of  spectators.  That 
they  were  not  idle  spectators  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
whenever  it  seemed  necessary  to  the  prisoner's  counsel  to  find  wit 
nesses  to  contradict  any  testimony  that  was  particularly  damaging 
to  their  cause  they  were  always  promptly  found,  and  were  almost 
uniformly  Catholics  in  religion,  as  shown  by  their  own  testimony 
on  their  cross-examination.  It  was  a  remarkable  fact,  also,  that 
these  witnesses  were  scarcely  ever  able  to  come  from  under  the 
fire  of  Judge  Pierrepont's  searching  cross-examinations  uncrippled, 
and  also  that  when  they  took  the  risk  of  bringing  two  witnesses  in 
rebuttal  of  the  same  testimony  their  witnesses  uniformly  killed 
each  other  off  before  they  got  through  the  ordeal  that  tests  the 
truthfulness  of  witnesses  —  the  cross-examination.  Other  outside 
influences  were  brought  to  bear  on  jurors,  such  as  these:  Father 
John  B.  Menu,  from  St.  Charles  College,  spent  a  day  in  the  court 
room,  sitting  beside  the  prisoner  all  day,  thus  saying  to  the  jury, 
''You  see  which  side  I  am  on."  A  great  many  of  the  students 
from  the  same  college  also  visited  the  trial,  it  being  vacation,  and 
they  uniformly  took  great  pains  to  show  their  sympathy  with  the 
prisoner  by  shaking  hands  with  him.  The  press  also  was  prosti- 


282  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

tuted  almost  daily  by  publishing  cunningly  devised  paragraphs  im 
pugning  the  motives  of  the  government  in  the  prosecution  and  man 
agement  of  the  case.  Thus  were  the  prejudices  of  jurors  appealed 
to  and  efforts  also  made  to  pervert  public  opinion. 

I  have  quoted  thus  at  length  from  Mr.  Merrick's  argument  to  show, 
first  the  animus  of  the  defense  toward  the  government,  and  especially 
toward  the  Judge  Advocate  General,  Joseph  Holt,  and  the  Secretary 
of  War  at  the  time  of  the  assassination,  Edwin  M.  Stanton.  These 
two  officers  of  the  government  need  no  vindication  at  my  hands  be 
fore  the  loyal  people  of  this  country,  as  they  were  never  denounced 
by  any  but  rebels,  whose  especial  venom  against  them  would  be  the 
strongest  presumptive  evidence  of  their  virtue  and  efficiency.  A 
purer  man,  a  truer  patriot,  a  braver,  more  intelligent  and  able  officer 
than  Gen.  Joseph  Holt  never  will  grace  the  pages  of  American  his 
tory.  He  was  only  hated  and  denounced  by  rebels  because  of  his 
faithfulness  to  duty  and  efficiency  in  its  performance.  Of  Edwin 
M.  Stanton,  also,  it  is  needless  for  me  to  say  a  word.  His  place  is 
fixed  in  history,  and  his  record  cannot  be  blurred  by  the  false  and 
vile  charges  or  insinuations  of  his  enemies,  for  his  enemies  were 
only  found  amongst  the  enemies  of  his  country,  and  precisely  for  the 
same  reason  that  they  were  enemies  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 
The  charges  here  so  boldly  made  that  they  stood  between  Mrs. 
Surratt  and  an  appeal  to  the  Executive  for  clemency,  was  shown  to 
be  false  by  Judge  Pierrepont,  who  produced  the  official  record  of  the 
trial  of  the  conspirators,  together  with  a  paper  signed  by  some  mem 
bers  of  the  court  recommending  commutation  of  the  sentence  of  Mrs. 
Surratt  to  imprisonment  for  life  on  account  of  her  age  and  sex,  and 
showed  that  this  whole  record  had  been  laid  before  the  President  and 
a  full  cabinet,  and  that  after  mature  discussion  and  consideration  it 
had  received  their  unanimous  approval,  with  the  exception  of  the 
request  for  the  commutation  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  sentence  which,  though 
not  a  part  of  the  record,  was  presented  with  it;  and  that  the  Presi 
dent's  order  for  the  execution  of  the  sentence  of  the  court  had  been 
written  on  the  back  of  this  very  record. 

These  papers  containing  this  whole  record  were  handed  to  Mr. 
Merrick,  who  tossed  them  from  him  indignantly,  afterwards  assign 
ing  as  his  reason  for  doing  so  that  he  had  learned  to  distrust  every- 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.  283 

thing  that  came  from  the  Bureau  of  Military  Justice.  His  real  reason 
was  that  he  did  not  desire  to  be  estopped  from  reiterating  the 
falsehoods  he  had  so  boldy  proclaimed. 

His  denunciation  of  the  Judge  Advocate  General  for  assisting 
the  prosecution  by  furnishing  them  with  witnesses,  to  prove  facts 
found  on  his  records,  if  he  did  indeed  thus  assist,  is  unmerited ;  as 
it  is  not  only  the  duty  of  every  private  citizen,  but  of  every  public 
officer  as  well,  to  assist,  if  it  be  in  his  power  to  do  so,  in  securing 
the  ends  of  justice  where  crimes  have  been  committed,  and  the  safety, 
peace,  and  welfare  of  society  put  in  jeopardy.  His  deliberate  false 
assumption  that  the  prosecution  had  put  Mrs.  Surratt  on  trial  is 
worthy  of  note,  as  he  himself  dragged  her  case  in  even  before  a 
jury  was  impaneled  ;  and  his  colleague,  Mr.  Jos.  H.  Bradley,  Jr.,  in 
his  opening  speech,  had  also  brought  it  up  in  such  a  way  that  the 
District  Attorney  was  forced  to  notice  it.  It  was  evidently  a  pre 
meditated  scheme  of  the  defense,  and  was  done  for  the  purpose  of 
appealing  to  the  prejudices  of  jurors,  and  of  making  political  capital. 

Mr.  Merrick's  protrayal  of  the  scenes  incident  to  the  execution 
of  Mrs.  Surratt  was  a  fine  piece  of  eloquent  and  pathetic  declamation. 
We  cannot  but  deplore,  however,  that  the  fine  sensibilities  of  the 
counsel  had  not  found  occasion  for  their  display  in  the  case  of  the 
widow  and  orphan  child  of  the  martyred  President,  rather  than  in 
the  person  of  one  proven  guilty  of  complicity  in  his  assassination, 
and  of  being  so  actively  engaged  in  that  tragedy  that  she  had  traveled 
twenty  miles  on  that  fatal  Friday  afternoon  to  carry,  at  Booth's  re 
quest,  a  field  glass  which  he  had  delivered  to  her  for  the  purpose, 
to  Surrattsville,  to  be  deposited  and  delivered  by  Lloyd,  at  her  re 
quest,  along  with  the  carbines  and  the  whiskey,  to  the  assassins  on 
that  night,  when  fleeing  from  the  seat  of  their  crime,  and  from 
offended  justice.  It  is  to  be  deplored  that  he  had  no  tears  for  the 
crazed  widow  and  orphan  child  of  the  murdered  President,  when 
he  could  find  such  a  generous  fountain  for  his  murderers.  Such, 
however,  is  the  deplorable  effect  of  political  and  religious  pre 
judice  on  frail  human  nature,  that  it  perverts  our  moral  sensibilities 
and  warps  our  judgment.  Mr.  Merrick  could  see  nothing  but 
innocence  in  the  prisoner  and  his  mother,  although  the  proof  of 
their  guilt  was  piled  mountain  high.  It  will  have  been  noticed  that 


284  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

he  unequivocally  asserts  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  had  decided  that  the  commission  that  tried  the  assassins 
was  an  illegal  tribunal.  We  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to 
show  that  this  is  untrue. 

If  the  counsel  for  the  defense  was  not  aware  of  this  fact,  it  was 
because  they  had  failed  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  decision  to 
which  they  referred,  and  on  which  they  relied. 

It  was  neither  fair  nor  honest  in  them,  after  dragging  into  the 
trial  the  question  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  guilt  or  innocence,  and  that 
for  the  purpose  we  have  above  indicated,  to  endeavor,  in  the  face 
of  the  facts,  to  shift  the  burden  of  the  responsibility  for  this  on  to 
the  prosecution.  It  was  equally  dishonest  to  insinuate  that  the 
prosecution  of  John  H.  Surratt  was  not  entered  upon  alone  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  his  guilt  or  innocence,  but  in  order  that  the 
false  stories  that  had  been  published  in  regard  to  the  course  of  the 
government  in  executing  Mrs.  Surratt  might  be  set  at  rest.  The 
most  eloquent  counsel  for  the  defence,  ably  assisted  by  his  colleagues, 
endeavored  to  put  the  government,  and  not  the  prisoner,  on  trial 
before  the  jury,  and  before  the  country.  They  uniformly  and  boldly 
asserted  his  innocence,  whilst  they  arraigned  the  government  for 
having  murdered,  according  to  one,  and  butchered  according  to 
another,  an  innocent  woman  ;  and  also  of  being  in  this  trial  engaged 
in  an  endeavor  to  cover  up  the  guilt  of  shedding  her  innocent  blood, 
by  shedding  the  blood  of  her  innocent  son.  To  cap  the  climax 
of  their  audacity  Mr.  Bradley,  after  reiterating  the  charges  made  by 
Mr.  Merrick  and  Joseph  H.  Bradley,  Jr.  ,  asked  the  jury,  in  making 
up  their  verdict,  to  make  a  written  statement  at  the  same  time  of 
their  belief  that  Mrs.  Surratt  had  been  unjustly  condemned,  and 
found  guilty  upon  insufficient  evidence. 

They  charged  the  government  with  dishonesty  in  withholding 
Booth's  diary  from  the  commission ;  claiming  that  it  would  have 
proven  Mrs.  Surratt's  innocence.  They  could  not  have  failed  to 
know,  as  able  lawyers,  that  this  diary  was  of  no  account  whatever 
as  evidence.  It  was  no  more  admissible  than  was  Atzerodt's  con 
fession,  as  every  entry  that  was  made  in  it  was  made  with  the 
almost  certainty  of  his  capture  in  view,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  concealing  the  greatness  of  the  conspiracy  and  its  personnel. 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          285 

It  was  of  no  more  value  than  was  his  declaration  in  favor  of  his 
fellow-conspirator,  Herold,  that  he  was  an  innocent  man,  made  a  few 
moments  before  he  was  shot. 

In  his  argument  on  the  defense  of  an  alibi  set  up  by  the  prisoner, 
Mr.  Merrick  makes  great  account  of  the  evidence  of  the  detectives 
who  visited  and  searched  Mrs.  Surratt's  house  at  two  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  the  I5th  of  April,  that  Mrs.  Surratt  declared  that  John 
was  not  there,  and  that  she  had  not  seen  him  for  two  weeks. 

She  claimed  that  he  was  in  Montreal,  and  that  she  had  received 
a  letter  from  him  on  the  day  previous.  They  well  knew  that  her 
declarations  had  no  value  as  testimony,  and  that  there  was  evidence 
flatly  contradicting  her  statements. 

That  she  had  received  the  letter  as  claimed,  was  true ;  but  that 
that  letter  had  been  written  for  the  very  purpose  of  being  used  in 
the  defence  of  an  alibi  is  evident  from  its  contents,  when  considered 
in  connection  with  the  evidence  in  the  case.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Wiechmann,  who  was  a  boarder  in  the  house,  answered  the  door 
bell,  when  the  detectives  rang  it  for  the  purpose  of  demanding  admit 
tance,  that  they  might  search  the  house.  He  rapped  at  Mrs.  Surratt's 
door  and  informed  her  as  to  who  was  at  the  door  and  what  they 
had  come  for.  Her  answer  was,  "  For  God's  sake,  let  them  come 
in  ;  I  have  been  expecting  them."1  When  they  inquired  for  her  son 
she  said,  "  He  is  not  here  ;  I  have  not  seen  him  for  two  weeks." 
This  was  a  sufficient  answer,  but  her  guilty  conscience  would  not 
let  her  stop  here,  she  had  to  add,  "  There  are  a  great  many  mothers 
who  do  not  know  where  their  sons  are."  Let  us  ask  ourselves  at 
this  point,  how  many  mothers  in  Washington  City  at  that  hour  of 
that  eventful  night  were  lying  awake  expecting  their  houses  to  be 
searched  by  detectives?  Our  inner  consciousness  will  unerringly 
dictate  the  answer,  "  Not  one  who  was  innocent  of  crime.  "  It  is 
only  necessary  to  say,  further,  in  regard  to  this  defense  set  up,  of 
an  alibi,  that  although  there  is  no  more  common  defense  resorted 
to  by  criminals,  because  there  is  none  more  easy  of  establishment, 
there  was  never  perhaps  in  all  the  history  of  jurisprudence  a  weaker 
and  more  unsuccessful  effort  made  to  establish  it  than  in  this  defense. 
The  effort  made  by  the  prisoner  to  establish  an  alibi  showed  plainly 

1  See  p.  394,  Trial  of  Surratt;  also  supplemental  affidavit  of  L.  J.  Wiechmann. 


286  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

that  he  had  endeavored  to  prepare  for  it,  in  anticipation  for  his 
defense,  and  that,  in  this  preparation  he  had  had  able  help.  There 
is  good  reason  to  conclude  that  he  and  a  half  dozen  other  of  his 
friends  in  Canada  had  found  an  opportunity  to  visit  Canandaigua 
in  disguise,  for  the  purpose  of  doctoring  up  a  hotel  register  to  be 
used  in  evidence.  The  effort  after  all,  proved  a  miserable  failure. 

That  he  went  from  Montreal  to  Elmira,  N.Y.,  leaving  the  former 
place  at  two  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  I2th  of  April,  was  ad 
mitted.  There  was  evidence  that  he  was  in  Elmira  on  the  morning 
of  the  1 3th,  and  two  or  three  credible  witness  were  found  who  swore 
that  they  saw  him  there  either  on  the  I3th  or  I4th.  They  were 
willing  to  conclude  that  it  might  have  been  on  the  I4th ;  but  would 
not  positively  swear  that  it  was.  On  the  other  hand  the  government 
produced  two  witnesses  who  identified  him  as  a  man  whom  they 
saw  on  the  road  making  his  way  towards  Baltimore,  on  the  I3th, 
one  of  whom  ferried  him  over  the  Susquehanna  river,  and  stopped 
mid-stream  to  collect  his  fare,  and  so  talked  with  him  and  had  a 
good  look  at  him.  It  was  then  proven  by  nearly  a  dozen  witnesses 
that  they  saw  him  in  Washington  City  on  the  I4th.  So  that  the 
great  preponderance  of  evidence  was  against  the  alibi ;  and  so  it 
legally  failed.  The  defense  was  lame  and  weak  at  every  point  in  the 
light  of  the  evidence,  which  all  tended  to  show  the  prisoner's  guilt. 
It  was  only  strong  in  the  bold  efforts  of  his  counsel  to  scout  all 
the  testimony  against  him,  and  to  have  the  jury  accept  their 
assertions  of  his  innocence,  backed  by  their  weight  of  character 
as  lawyers,  in  lieu  of  evidence,  to  establish  his  innocence,  and  in 
contemning  and  rejecting  that  which  established  his  guilt. 

They  also  made  great  complaint  that  they  were  not  allowed  to 
prove  by  John  Matthews,  the  contents  of  the  paper  which  he 
alleged  was  put  into  his  hand  by  Booth,  a  few  hours  before  the 
commission  of  his  crime,  with  the  request  that  he  would,  on  the 
following  day,  upon  certain  contingencies,  give  it  to  the  editor  of 
the  National  Intelligencer  for  publication,  and  which  Matthews 
claimed  to  have  destroyed.  Of  course  they  knew  that  nothing 
could  be  proven  by  this  paper,  much  less  by  evidence  as  to  its 
contents,  yet,  when  it  was  not  admitted  by  the  court,  they  reserved 
an  exception,  and  then  in  argument  claimed  that  had  they  been 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE   DEFENSE.          287 

allowed  the  benefit  of  this,  they  could  have  shown  that  the  pur 
pose  of  assassination  was  not  formed  until  that  day,  and  that 
neither  the  prisoner  nor  his  mother  was  in  it. 

Matthews  afterwards  published  what  he  said  he  desired  to  testify 
to,  but  was  not  permitted  to  do  so  by  the  Court.  The  statement 
that  he  claimed  to  be  of  Booth  in  this  paper,  gave  the  lie  to 
Atzerodt's  confession.  These  able  lawyers  knew  full  well  that 
culprits,  anticipating  arrest  and  trial,  could  not  be  permitted  to 
manufacture  evidence  in  their  own  favor  in  advance.  Yet  they 
did  not  scruple  to  use,  in  an  indirect  way,  in  argument  before  the 
jury,  this  very  testimony  that  had  been  excluded.  Booth's  diary, 
Booth's  statement  for  publication,  Atzerodt's  confession,  and  the 
lecture  of  John  H.  Surratt,  in  which  he  makes  his  confession  and 
statement  of  the  affair,  are  all  of  a  piece,  and  alike  unworthy  of 
credit,  because  they  are  all  contradicted  by  sufficient  and  reliable 
testimony  in  every  important  particular.  The  eloquence  of  coun 
sel  in  regard  to  the  grave  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  who  was  buried  in  the 
grounds  of  the  old  arsenal,  being  a  nameless  grave,  is  wasted 
eloquence  in  the  mind  of  every  loyal  man  and  woman  in  the 
country,  as  the  heniousness  of  the  crime  of  which  she  was  con 
victed,  made  it  fitting  that  she  should  sleep  in  a  nameless  grave, 
and  that  the  spot  of  her  resting-place  be  unknown,  as  an  admoni 
tion  to  all  traitors  to  their  country,  and  its  free  institutions  of  gov 
ernment,  and  whose  disloyalty  fits  them  for  the  highest  crimes  that 
man  can  commit,  of  the  infamy  that  awaits  them  in  the  just  ver 
dict  of  an  outraged  people.  Mrs.  Surratt' s  remains  were  given  up 
to  her  daughter  two  years  later,  in  1 869. 

We  will  now  give  a  few  of  the  opening  paragraphs  of  Judge 
Pierrepont's  argument  for  the  prosecution,  in  which  he  disposes  of 
the  outside  and  irrelevant  matter  that  had  been  lugged  into  the 
defense,  and  out  of  which  they  had  endeavored  to  make  so  much 
capital. 

(<  May  it  please  your  honor,  and  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  have 
not,  in  the  progress  of  this  long  and  tedious  cause,  had  the  oppor 
tunity  as  yet  of  addressing  to  you  one  word.  My  time  has  now 
arrived,  '  Yea,  all  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life.'  When 
the  book  of  Job  was  written,  this  was  true,  and  it  is  just  as  true 


288  A  SSA  SSINA  TION  OF  LINCOLN. 

to-day.  A  man,  in  order  to  save  his  life,  will  give  his  property, 
will  give  his  liberty,  will  sacrifice  his  good  name,  and  will  desert 
his  father,  his  brother,  his  mother  and  his  sister.  He  will  lift  up 
his  hand  before  Almighty  God  and  swear  that  he  is  innocent  of 
the  crime  with  which  he  is  charged.  He  will  bring  perjury  upon 
his  soul,  giving  all  that  he  hath  in  the  world,  and  be  ready  to  take 
the  chances  and  jump  the  life  to  come ;  and  so  far  as  counsel 
place  themselves  in  the  situation  of  their  client,  and  just  to  the 
degree  that  they  absorb  his  feelings,  his  terror,  and  his  purposes, 
just  so  far  will  counsel  do  the  same. 

"  I  am  well  aware,  gentlemen,  of  the  difficulties  under  which  I 
labor  in  addressing  you.  The  other  counsel  have  all  told  you  that 
they  know  you  and  that  you  know  them.  They  know  you  in 
social  life,  and  they  know  you  in  political  affairs.  They  know 
your  sympathies,  your  habits,  your  modes  of  thought,  your  pre 
judices  even.  They  know  how  to  address  you,  and  how  to 
awaken  your  sympathies,  whilst  I  come  before  you  a  total 
stranger.  There  is  not  a  face  in  those  seats  that  I  have  ever 
beheld  until  this  trial  commenced,  and  yet  I  have  a  kind  of  feel 
ing  pervading  me  that  we  are  not  strangers. 

"  I  feel  as  though  we  had  a  common  origin,  a  common  country, 
and  a  common  religion,  and  that,  on  many  grounds,  we  must  have 
a  common  sympathy.  I  feel  as  though,  if  hereafter  I  should  meet 
you  in  my  native  city,  or  in  a  foreign  land,  I  should  meet  you,  not 
as  strangers,  but  as  friends.  It  was  not  a  pleasant  thing  for  me 
to  come  into  this  case.  I  was  called  into  it  at  a  time  ill-suited  in 
every  respect.  I  had  just  taken  my  seat  in  the  convention  called 
for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  new  constitution  for  my  State,  and  I 
was  a  member  of  the  judiciary  committee.  The  convention  is  now 
sitting,  and  I  am  now  absent  where  I  ought  to  be  present.  I 
feel,  however,  that  I  had  no  right  to  shirk  this  duty. 

"  The  counsel  asked  whether  I  represented  the  Attorney  Gen 
eral  in  this  case.  They  had,  perhaps,  the  right  to  ask,  and  so 
asking  I  give  you  the  answer.  There  surely  is  no  mystery  about 
the  matter.  The  District  Attorney,  feeling  the  magnitude  of  this 
case,  felt  that  he  ought  to  apply  to  the  Attorney  General 
for  assistance  in  the  prosecution  of  it,  and  he  accordingly  made 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  289 

the  application.  I  have  known  the  Attorney  General  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  Our  relations  have  been  most  friendly,  both 
in  a  social  and  professional  point  of  view.  The  Attorney  General 
conferred  with  the  Secretary  of  State,  who  is,  as  you  kno\v,  from 
my  own  State,  and  they  determined  to  ask  me  to  assist  in  the 
prosecution  of  this  cause.  On  receiving  a  letter  from  the  Secre 
tary  of  State,  I  came  to  Washington,  when  I  met  him  and  the 
Attorney  General.  This  is  the  way  I  happened  to  be  here  en 
gaged  in  this  case ;  and  I  may  say  that  I  am  assured  that  there 
was  no  member  of  the  cabinet  but  those  two  who  ever  heard  or 
knew  of  my  retainer  until  after  my  arrival  here.  I  have  simply 
tried  to  perform  my  duty  as  I  best  could,  but  I  have,  no  doubt, 
failed  to  a  great  extent.  A  trial,  protracted  as  this  has  been,  and 
in  such  oppressive  weather,  is  indeed  a  trial.  It  is  a  trial  to  the 
court,  it  is  a  trial  to  you,  it  is  a  trial  to  the  counsel,  it  is  a  trial  to 
health,  it  is  a  trial  to  patience,  and  it  is  a  trial  to  temper. 

"When  the  President  of  the  United  States  was  assassinated,  I  was 
one  of  a  committee  sent  on  by  the  citizens  of  New  York  to  attend 
his  funeral.  When  standing,  as  I  did  stand,  in  the  east  room  by 
the  side  of  that  coffin,  if  some  citizen  sympathizing  with  the 
enemies  of  my  country  had,  because  my  tears  were  falling  in  sorrow 
over  the  murder  of  the  President,  there  insulted  me,  and  I  had  at 
that  time  repelled  the  insult  with  insult,  I  think  my  fellow-citizens 
would  have  said  to  me  that  my  act  was  deserving  of  condemnation  ; 
that  I  had  no  right,  in  that  solemn  hour,  to  let  my  petty  passions 
or  my  personal  resentments  disturb  the  sanctity  of  the  scene.  To 
my  mind  the  sancitity  of  this  trial  is  far  above  that  funeral  occasion, 
solemn  and  holy  as  it  was,  and  I  should  forever  deem  myself  dis 
graced  if  I  should  ever  allow  any  passion  of  mine  or  personal  resent 
ment  of  any  kind  to  bring  me  here  into  any  petty  quarrel  over  the 
murder  of  the  President  of  the  United  States.  I  have  tried  to  re 
frain  from  anything  like  that,  and  God  helping  me,  I  shall  so 
endeavor  to  the  end. 

"  To  me,  gentlemen,  this  prisoner  at  the  bar  is  a  pure  abstraction. 
I  have  no  feeling  toward  him  whatever.  I  never  saw  him  until  I 
saw  him  in  this  room,  and  then  it  was  under  circumstances  cal 
culated  to  awaken  only  my  sympathy.  I  never  knew  one  of  his 


290  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

kindred,  and  never  expect  to  know  one  of  them.  To  me  he  is  a 
stranger.  Toward  him  I  have  no  hostility,  and  I  shall  not  utter 
any  word  of  vituperation  against  him.  I  came  to  try  one  of  the 
assassins  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  as  indicted  before 
you.  I  laid  personal  considerations  aside,  and  I  hope  I  shall 
succeed  in  keeping  them  from  this  cause,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned. 
I  believe,  gentlemen,  that  what  you  wish  to  know  in  this  case  is 
the  truth.  I  believe  it  is  your  honest  desire  to  find  out  whether 
the  accused  was  engaged  in  this  plot  to  overthrow  this  government 
and  assassinate  the  President  of  the  United  States.  My  duty  is  to 
try  to  aid  you  in  coming  to  a  just  conclusion.  When  this  evidence 
is  reviewed,  and  when  it  is  honestly  and  fairly  presented,  when 
passions  are  laid  aside,  and  when  other  people  who  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  trial  are  kept  out  of  the  case,  you  will  discover  that 
in  the  whole  history  of  jurisprudence  no  murder  was  ever  proved 
with  the  demonstration  with  which  this  has  been  proven  before 
you.  The  facts,  the  proofs,  the  circumstances  all  tend  to  one 
point,  and  all  prove  the  case,  not  only  beyond  a  reasonable,  but 
beyond  any  doubt. 

"  This  has  been,  as  I  have  already  stated,  a  very  protracted  case. 
The  evidence  is  scattered.  It  has  come  in  link  by  link,  and  as  we 
could  not  have  witnesses  here  in  their  order  when  you  might  have 
seen  it  in  its  logical  bearings,  we  were  obliged  to  take  it  as  it  came ; 
and  now  it  becomes  my  duty  to  put  it  together  and  show  you  what 
it  is.  I  shall  not  attempt,  gentlemen,  to  convince  you  by  bold 
assertions  of  my  own.  I  fancy  I  could  make  them  as  loudly  and  as 
confidently  as  the  counsel  on  the  other  side,  but  I  am  not  here  for 
that  purpose.  The  counsel  are  not  witnesses  in  the  cause.  We 
have  come  here  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  under  the 
law  and  on  the  evidence  presented,  this  man  arraigned  before  you 
is  guilty  as  charged.  I  do  not  think  it  proper  that  I  should  tell 
you  what  I  think  about  everything  that  may  arise  in  the  case,  or 
that  I  should  tell  you  that  I  know  that  this  thing  is  so,  and  that 
the  other  is  another  way.  My  business  is  to  prove  to  you  from 
this  evidence  that  the  prisoner  is  guilty.  If  I  do  that  I  shall  ask 
your  verdict.  If  I  do  not  do  that,  I  shall  neither  expect  nor  hope 
for  it.  " 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  291 

"  I  listened,  gentlemen,  to  the  two  counsel  who  have  addressed 
you  for  several  days,  without  one  word  of  interruption.  I  listened 
to  them  respectfully  and  attentively.  I  knew  their  earnestness,  and 
I  know  the  poetry  that  was  brought  into  the  case,  and  the  feeling 
and  the  passion  that  was  attempted  to  be  excited  in  your  breasts, 
by  bringing  before  you  the  ghost  trailing  her  calico  dress  and 
making  it  rustle  against  these  chairs.  I  have  none  of  these  powers 
which  the  gentlemen  seem  to  possess,  nor  shall  I  attempt  to  invoke 
them.  I  have  come  to  you  for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  this 
party  accused  here  was  engaged  in  this  conspiracy  to  overthrow 
this  government,  which  conspiracy  resulted  in  the  death  of  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  by  a  shot  from  a  pistol  in  the  hands  of  John  Wilkes 
Booth.  That  is  all  there  is  to  be  proven  in  this  case. 

"  I  have  not  come  here  for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  Mrs. 
Surratt  was  guilty  or  that  she  was  innocent,  and  I  do  not  under 
stand  why  that  subject  was  lugged  into  this  case  in  the  mode  that 
it  has  been ;  nor  do  I  understand  why  the  counsel  denounced  the 
military  commission  who  tried  her,  and  thus  indirectly  censured, 
in  the  severest  manner,  the  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
counsel  certainly  knew  when  they  were  talking  about  that  tribunal, 
and  when  they  were  thus  denouncing  it,  that  President  Johnson, 
President  of  the  United  States,  ordered  it  with  his  own  hand  ;  that 
President  Johnson,  President  of  the  United  States,  signed  the 
warrant  that  directed  the  execution ;  that  President  Johnson, 
President  of  the  United  States,  when  that  record  was  presented  to 
him,  laid  it  before  his  cabinet,  and  that  every  single  member  voted 
to  confirm  the  sentence,  and  that  the  President  with  his  own  hand, 
wrote  his  confirmation  of  it,  and  with  his  own  hand  signed  the 
warrant.  I  hold  in  my  hand  the  original  record,  and  no  other  man, 
as  it  appears  from  that  paper,  ordered  it.  No  other  one  touched 
this  paper ;  and  when  it  was  suggested  by  some  of  the  members 
of  the  commission  that  in  consequence  of  the  age  and  the  sex 
of  Mrs.  Surratt  it  might  possibly  be  well  to  change  her  sentence 
to  imprisonment  for  life,  he  signed  the  warrant  for  her  death  with 
the  paper  right  before  his  eyes  —  and  there  it  is  (handing  the 
paper  to  Mr.  Merrick).  My  friend  can  read  it  for  himself. 

"  My  friends  on  the  other  side  have  undertaken  to  arraign  the 


2  9  2  A  SSA  SSINA  TION  OF  LINCOLN. 

government  of  the  United  States  against  the  prisoner.  They  have 
talked  very  loudly  and  eloquently  about  this  great  government  of 
twenty-five  or  thirty  millions  of  people  being  engaged  in  trying  to 
bring  to  conviction  one  poor  young  man,  and  have  treated  it  as 
though  it  was  a  hostile  act,  as  though  two  parties  were  litigants 
before  you,  the  one  trying  to  beat  the  other.  Is  it  possible  that  it 
has  come  to  this,  that,  in  the  city  of  Washington,  where  the  Presi 
dent  has  been  murdered,  that  when  under  the  form  of  law,  and 
before  a  court  and  jury  of  twelve  men,  an  investigation  is  made  to 
ascertain  whether  the  prisoner  is  guilty  of  this  great  crime,  that 
the  government  are  to  be  charged  as  seeking  his  blood,  and  its 
officers  as  lapping  their  tongues  in  the  blood  of  the  innocent?  I 
quote  the  language  exactly.  It  is  a  shocking  thing  to  hear.  What 
is  the  purpose  of  a  government?  What  is  the  business  of  a  govern 
ment?  According  to  the  gentlemen's  notion,  when  a  murder  is 
committed  the  government  should  not  do  anything  towards  ascer 
taining  who  perpetrated  that  murder ;  and  if  the  government  did 
undertake  to  investigate  the  matter  and  endeavor  to  find  out 
whether  the  man  charged  with  the  crime  is  guilty  or  not  guilty 
the  government  and  all  connected  with  it  must  be  expected  to  be 
assailed  as  'blood  hounds  of  the  law,'  and  as  seeking  'to  lap  their 
tongues  in  the  blood  of  the  innocent. '  Is  that  the  business  of 
government,  and  is  it  the  business  of  counsel  under  any  circum 
stances  thus  to  charge  the  government?  What  is  government 
for?  It  is  instituted  for  your  protection,  for  my  protection,  for 
the  protection  of  us  all.  What  could  we  do  without  it?  Tell  me, 
my  learned  and  eloquent  counsel  on  the  other  side,  what  would 
you  do  without  a  government?  What  would  you  do  in  this  city? 
Suppose,  for  instance,  a  set  of  young  men,  who  choose  to  lead  an 
idle  life,  say  to  themselves  that  it  is  not  right  that  some  rich  man 
living  here  should  be  enjoying  his  hoarded  wealth,  and  they  break 
into  his  house  at  night  and  steal  therefrom.  My  learned  friend 
would  say,  when  you  came  to  prosecute  them  for  that  robbery, 
'What!  would  you  have  this  great  and  generous  government  of 
twenty-five  or  thirty  millions  of  people  pursue  these  poor  young 
men,  who  merely  tried  to  break  into  the  house  of  one  of  your 
citizens  and  steal  his  money?  Should  not  this  government  be 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  293 

generous  and  let  them  go?  Oh,  yes!  Let  them  off.  Well,  they 
are  let  off,  and  a  few  days  afterward  they  break  into  the  house  of 
my  friend,  Mr.  Merrick,  for  the  purpose  of  stealing  his  money, 
when  he,  a  brave  man,  undertakes  to  resist  them,  and  in  doing  so 
they  strike  him  down  in  death.  Oh,  generous  government !  with 
twenty-five  or  thirty  millions  of  people,  let  the  young  men  off. 
Why  should  a  great  and  generous  government  with  all  its  powers 
be  pursuing  the  young  men  who  thus  murdered  Mr.  Merrick  while 
attempting  to  prevent  a  robbery  at  his  house  ? 

"  Why  should  the  officers  of  the  government  be  *  lapping  their 
tongues  in  the  blood  of  the  innocent?'  Suppose  this  view  as  to 
the  duty  of  a  government  were  universally  entertained,  what  would 
be  the  result?  How  long  would  your  government  last?  How 
long  would  you  hold  a  dollar  of  property?  How  long  would  the 
safety  of  your  daughters  be  secure?  How  long  would  the  life  of 
your  sons,  who  stand  in  resistance  to  lust  and  rapine,  be  safe?  I 
have  never  heard  such  shocking  sentiments  uttered  in  relation  to 
the  duty  of  government  from  any  human  lips,  or  from  any  writer 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  have  been  told  here  that  our  govern 
ment  has  nothing  of  divinity  that  hedges  it  about ;  that  it  is  only 
the  government  of  man's  making.  The  Bible  tells  us  that  all 
government  is  of  God ;  that  the  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of 
God ;  and  I  can  tell  you,  gentlemen,  if  such  are  the  sentiments  of 
this  country  that  there  is  no  divinity  and  no  power  of  God  that 
hedges  about  this  government,  its  days  are  numbered,  its  condem 
nation  is  already  written,  and  it  will  lie  in  the  dust  before  many 
years  have  rolled  by.  No  government  that  is  not  of  God  will  last. 
It  will  soon  come  to  naught.  No  other  government  ever  did  long 
exist.  No  other  government  can  exist.  Every  government  which 
is  a  government  of  the  people  is  of  God,  and  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God.  When  you  come  together  to  the  polls,  and 
you  elect  as  the  ruler  of  this  great  nation  a  President,  he  is  made 
so  by  the  sanction  of  your  votes,  and  in  that  act  the  voice  of  the 
people  becomes  the  voice  of  God.  I  repeat,  a  government  which 
is  thus  instituted  is  ordained  of  God,  and  it  is  as  much  hedged 
about  as  that  of  any  king  that  ever  reigned  on  England's  throne. 
Is  it  possible  that  our  countrymen  will  say  that  the  government 


294  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

which  we  thus  have  made,  which  our  fathers  established,  and  which 
We  are  thus  cherishing,  has  nothing  of  divinity  hedging  it  about? 

"Does  it  rest  alone  on  human  whim,  without  having  anything 
sacred  about  it,  and  without  any  protection  of  the  Almighty  over 
it?  If  so,  let  me  again  repeat,  its  days  are  numbered;  it  will  soon 
pass  away.  Once  there  was  an  empire  in  Rome.  It  was  an  em 
pire  which  was  in  its  day  the  greatest  which  the  human  mind  had 
ever  reared  ;  but  it  did  not  believe,  or  rather  ceased  to  believe, 
that  there  was  a  God  who  ruled ;  that  government  was  of  God ; 
and  they  ceased  to  punish  great  crimes,  such  as  treason,  rapine, 
and  murder,  and  it  happened  a  very  short  time  after  they  ceased 
to  inflict  punishment  for  such  crimes — ceased  to  exercise  the 
powers  which  belong  to  government  —  that  the  Roman  empire 
tumbled  into  ruins. 

"  It  was  trampled  down  by  the  barbarians,  and  now  not  a  son  of 
the  Caesars  lives  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  not  a  descendant  of 
a  Roman  matron  exists  anywhere  in  this  wide  universe.  The  em 
pire  perished,  and  crumbled  into  dust ;  nothing  but  its  ashes  remain. 
And  thus  will  it  ever  be  whenever  a  people  cease  to  obey  God, 
and  cease  to  think  that  government  is  of  God.  Let  us  see  what 
the  Bible  says  on  this  subject ;  what  views  were  entertained  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  what  in  the  New.  "  Mr.  Pierrepont  then  read 
from  1st  Samuel,  chapter  xv,  as  follows:  — 

"  '  Samuel  also  said  unto  Saul,  the  Lord  sent  me  to  anoint  thee  to 
be  king  over  his  people,  over  Israel ;  now  therefore  hearken  thou 
unto  the  voice  of  the  words  of  the  Lord. 

"'Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  I  remember  that  which  Amalek 
did  to  Israel,  how  he  laid  wait  for  him  in  the  way,  when  he  came 
up  from  Egypt. 

"  'Now  go  and  smite  Amalek,  and  utterly  destroy  all  that  they 
have,  and  spare  them  not ;  but  slay  both  man  and  woman,  infant 
and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep,  camel  and  ass. 

"  'And  Saul  gathered  the  people  together,  and  numbered  them 
in  Telaim,  two  hundred  thousand  foot-men,  and  ten  thousand  men 
of  Judah. 

"'And  Saul  came  to  a  city  of  Amalek,  and  laid  wait  in  the 
valley. 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.  295 

"'And  Saul  said  unto  the  Kenites,  go,  depart,  get  you  down 
from  among  the  Amalekites,  lest  I  destroy  you  with  them  ;  for  ye 
showed  kindness  to  all  the  children  of  Israel,  when  they  came  up 
out  of  Egypt.  So  the  Kenites  departed  from  among  the  Amale 
kites. 

"'And  Saul  smote  the  Amalekites,  from  Havilah  until  thou 
comest  to  Shur,  that  is  over  against  Egypt. 

"'And  he  took  Agag,  the  king  of  the  Amalekites,  alive,  and 
utterly  destroyed  all  the  people  with  the  edge  of  the  sword. 

"'But  Saul  and  the  people  spared  Agag,  and  the  best  of  the 
sheep,  and  of  the  oxen,  and  of  the  fatlings,  and  of  the  lambs,  and 
all  that  was  good,  and  would  not  utterly  destroy  them  ;  but  every 
thing  that  was  vile  and  refuse,  that  they  destroyed  utterly. 

"  '  Then  came  the  word  of  the  Lord  unto  Samuel,  saying,  It 
repenteth  me  that  I  have  set  up  Saul  to  be  king ;  for  he  is  turned 
back  from  following  me,  and  hath  not  performed  my  command 
ments.  And  it  grieved  Samuel,  and  he  cried  unto  the  Lord  all 
night. 

"  4  And  when  Samuel  rose  early  to  meet  Saul  in  the  morning, 
it  was  told  Samuel,  saying,  Saul  came  to  Carmel,  and  behold,  he 
set  him  up  a  place,  and  is  gone  about,  and  passed  on,  and  gone 
down  to  Gilgal. 

"  '  And  Samuel  came  to  Saul,  and  Saul  said  unto  him,  blessed 
be  thou  of  the  Lord  ;  I  have  performed  the  commandment  of  the 
Lord. 

"  '  And  Samuel  said,  what  meaneth  then  this  bleating  of  sheep 
in  mine  ears,  and  the  lowing  of  the  oxen  which  I  hear? 

"  'And  Saul  said,  they  have  brought  them  from  the  Amalekites; 
for  the  people  spared  the  best  of  the  sheep,  and  of  the  oxen,  to 
sacrifice  unto  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  the  rest  we  have  utterly  de 
stroyed. 

"'Then  Samuel  said  unto  Saul,  stay,  and  I  will  tell  thee  what 
the  Lord  hath  said  to  me  this  night.  And  he  said  unto  him  say  on. 

"  '  And  Samuel  said,  when  thou  wast  little  in  thine  own  sight, 
wast  thou  not  made  the  head  of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  and  the  Lord 
anointed  thee  king  over  Israel? 

"  '  And  the  Lord  sent  thee  on  a  journey,  and  said,  go  and  utterly 


296  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

destroy  the  sinners  of  the  Amalekites,  and  fight  against  them  until 
they  be  consumed. 

"  '  Wherefore  then  didst  thou  not  obey  the  voice  of  the  Lord, 
but  didst  fly  upon  the  spoil,  and  didst  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord. 

"  '  And  Saul  said  unto  Samuel,  yea,  I  have  obeyed  the  voice  of 
the  Lord,  and  have  gone  the  way  which  the  Lord  sent  me,  and 
have  brought  Agag,  the  king  of  Amalek,  and  have  utterly  destroyed 
the  Amalekites. 

"  (  But  the  people  took  of  the  spoil,  sheep  and  oxen,  the  chief 
of  the  things,  which  should  have  been  utterly  destroyed  to  sacrifice 
to  the  Lord  thy  God  in  Gilgal. 

"  '  And  Samuel  said,  hath  the  Lord  as  great  delight  in  burnt 
offerings  and  sacrifices  as  in  obeying  the  voice  of  the  Lord?  Be 
hold  to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat 
of  rams. 

«  <  por  rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft,  and  stubbornness  is 
as  iniquity  and  idolatry;  because  thou  hast  rejected  the  word  of 
the  Lord,  he  hath  also  rejected  thee  from  being  king. 

"  '  And  Saul  said  unto  Samuel,  I  have  sinned,  for  I  have  trans 
gressed  the  commandment  of  the  Lord,  and  thy  words ;  because  I 
feared  the  people,  and  obeyed  their  voice. 

"  '  Now,  therefore,  I  prayed  thee,  pardon  my  sin,  and  turn  again 
with  me  that  I  may  worship  the  Lord. 

"  '  And  Samuel  said  unto  Saul,  I  will  not  return  with  thee ;  for 
thou  hast  rejected  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  hath  rejected 
thee  from  being  king  over  Israel. 

"  *  And  as  Samuel  turned  about  to  go  away,  he  laid  hold  upon 
the  skirt  of  his  mantle,  and  it  rent. 

"  '  And  Samuel  said  unto  him,  the  Lord  hath  rent  the  kingdom 
of  Israel  from  thee  this  day,  and  hath  given  it  to  a  neighbor  of 
thine,  that  is  better  than  thou. 

"  *  And  also  the  strength  of  Israel  will  not  lie  nor  repent ;  for  he 
is  not  a  man  that  he  should  repent. 

"  '  Then  he  said,  I  have  sinned ;  yet  honor  me  now,  I  pray  thee, 
before  the  elders  of  my  people,  and  before  Israel,  and  turn  again 
with  me,  that  I  may  worship  the  Lord  thy  God. 

"  '  So  Samuel  turned  again  after  Saul,  and  Saul  worshiped  the  Lord. 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          297 

"  '  Then  said  Samuel,  bring  ye  hither  to  me  Agag,  the  king  of 
the  Amalekites.  And  Agag  came  unto  him  delicately.  And 
Agag  said,  surely  the  bitterness  of  death  is  past. 

"  '  And  Samuel  said,  as  thy  sword  has  made  women  childless,  so 
shall  thy  mother  be  childless  among  women.  And  Samuel  hewed 
Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord  in  Gilgal. 

"  '  Then  Samuel  went  to  Ramah  ;  and  Saul  went  up  to  his  house 
to  Gibeah  of  Saul. 

"  '  And  Samuel  came  no  more  to  see  Saul  until  the  day  of  his 
death ;  nevertheless,  Samuel  mourned  for  Saul ;  and  the  Lord 
repented  that  he  had  made  Saul  king  over  Israel.'  " 

Mr.  Pierrepont  then  read  from  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  St. 
Matthew  as  follows:  — 

"  'Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offences,  for  it  must  needs  be  that 

offences  come  ;  but  woe  unto  that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh. 

It  were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged 

about  his  neck,  and  that  he  were  drowned  in  the  depth  of  the  sea.' 

"  Such  was  the  order  in  the  times  of  this  Book.  All  government 
is  of  God.  The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Now,  from 
whom  come  those  words?  Not  from  the  Old  Testament,  but  they 
come  from  the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus,  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  who 
died  for  you,  for  me,  for  all.  It  is  true  as  the  counsel  have  said, 
that  God  is  a  God  of  mercy ;  but  he  says :  '  Though  I  am  a  God 
of  mercy,  I  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty.  '  Now  the  counsel 
who  has  addressed  you,  you  will  remember,  said  in  his  speech,  with 
great  earnestness :  '  We  have  had  blood  enough ;  let  us  have 
peace. '  The  question  before  you,  gentlemen,  is  not  about  blood. 
The  question  is  not  about  peace.  The  question  before  you  is 
whether  you  have  not  had  murder  enough,  and  assassination  enough, 
and  crime  enough,  to  enable  us  to  have  at  least  once  before  a  civil 
tribunal  in  this  land  a  trial  and  a  verdict.  Not  a  single  one  of  all 
those  engaged  in  the  conspiracy  has  been  tried  before  a  civil  tri 
bunal  ;  and  the  question  now  is,  have  you  not  had  enough  of  this 
murder,  enough  of  this  assassination,  to  have  at  least  one  jury  of 
the  country  say  so,  and  to  say  that  we  will  stop  it?  You  and  I 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  consequences.  All  we  have  to  do  is 
to  do  our  duty,  and  ascertain  whether  the  man  is  guilty.  You  do 


298  ASSASSINATION   OF  LINCOLN. 

not  punish  the  man ;  I  do  not  punish  the  man.  I  have  not  a 
feeling  toward  him  of  punishment,  and  you  have  no  such  feeling. 
The  duty  does  not  lie  with  you,  nor  with  me;  we  have  nothing  to 
do  with  that.  The  question  for  us  is  to  see  whether  this  man  is 
guilty  of  this  violation  of  the  law  of  the  land  as  charged  ;  and  if 
so,  to  so  declare ;  and  then,  if  for  any  cause,  the  Executive  sees  fit 
to  show  leniency,  he  will  show  it.  If  he  does  not,  he  will  not.  It 
is  not  for  you  or  for  me  to  have  to  say  what  the  leniency  should  be. 
It  is  not  for  you  or  for  me  to  have  anything  to  say  upon  that 
question.  Our  business  is,  I  repeat,  to  ascertain  whether  he  is 
guilty  of  this  violation  of  the  law,  and  if  he  is  guilty,  so  to  say, 
and  then  afterward  to  say  whatever  we  thought  fit  to  be  said  with 
regard  to  any  leniency.  Our  duty  is,  and  the  duty  of  the  court  is, 
to  find  out  that  one  fact,  and  to  have  you  pronounce  your  verdict, 
under  your  oath,  according  to  the  facts  as  you  find  them. 

"  There  are  one  or  two  other  things  that  I  must  notice  before  I 
come  to  the  main  question.  One  of  these  is  in  regard  to  the  attacks 
which  were  made  by  counsel  yesterday  upon  the  learned  District 
Attorney  and  myself.  Have  you  seen  anything  in  the  conduct  of 
the  District  Attorney  in  this  case  that  was  improper?  Have  you 
seen  anything  but  an  earnest  desire  to  discharge  his  duty?  If  I 
understood  the  counsel  aright  yesterday,  he  said  that  if  he  should 
stand  in  the  place  and  should  have  done  as  the  District  Attorney 
had,  he  would  expect  the  women,  as  they  passed  him,  to  gather 
their  skirts  and  pull  them  aside,  lest  they  be  contaminated  by  the 
touch.  I  did  not  at  that  time  know  why  there  was  so  much  bitter 
ness  of  feeling  thus  expressed,  but  I  have  been  shown  since  last  night 
this  record  called  the  (  Rebellion  Record,'  and  I  find  in  it  that  on 
the  5th  of  January,  1861,  Edward  C.  Carrington,  now  District 
Attorney,  issued  to  the  public  a  stirring  letter  calling  out  the  militia 
of  this  District  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  protection  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States ;  calling  upon  them  to  rally ;  and 
they  did  rally  at  his  call.  The  fact  of  this  native  born  citizen  of 
Virginia,  one  of  your  own  number  and  living  in  your  midst,  having 
thus  early  and  practically  taken  the  side  in  favor  of  the  government, 
when  even  his  own  State  had  deserted  him,  of  course  would  be  likely 
to  call  down  the  greatest  bitterness  and  hatred  against  this  loyal  and 


TREATMENT   OF    WITNESSES  BY   THE   DEFENSE.  299 

noble  citizen  on  the  part  of  a  certain  class.  We  have  been  told, 
gentlemen,  by  the  counsel  upon  the  other  side,  that  the  Judge 
Advocate  General  had  done  a  great  many  wrong  things  in  his  life. 
We  have  been  told  that  the  military  commission  which  Mr.  Johnson 
had  established,  and  he  alone,  had  done  wrong  things  in  their  prose 
cution  ;  and  we  have  been  told,  likewise,  that  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  had  decided  that  this  commission  was  illegal. 
Now  you  would  hardly  expect  an  eminent  lawyer  to  make  such  a 
statement  unless  he  believed  it.  But  he  is  wholly  mistaken.  No 
court  in  the  United  States  has  declared  this  commission  to  have 
been  illegal.  There  is  no  such  decision  on  record  —  not  any. 

"  Some  of  these  very  persons  are  now  in  confinement,  and  if  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had  declared  the  commission 
that  tried  them  illegal,  why  should  they  now,  in  a  time  of  profound 
peace,  be  kept  in  prison?  If  such  were  the  case  would  not  an 
application  have  been  immediately  made  by  my  learned  brother 
for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  release  them?  But  nothing  of  the 
kind  is  done.  And  why?  Because  no  such  decision  has  ever 
been  pronounced.  No  court  has,  and  in  my  judgment  no  court 
will,  pronounce  this  commission,  thus  formed  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  to  have  been  illegal.  " 

As  this  is  a  question  of  the  gravest  importance  we  all  ought  to 
know  whether,  as  claimed  twice  in  the  arguments  of  defendant's 
counsel,  the  military  commission  which  tried  the  conspirators  and 
assassins  has  been  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  to  have  been  an  illegal  tribunal.  Judge  Pierrepont,  as  we 
have  seen,  asserts  boldly  that  in  his  judgment  no  such  decision  had 
ever  been  given  by  that  tribunal,  or  ever  would  be.  That  the 
counsel  for  the  defense  did  not  really  so  understand  it  he  clearly 
shows  by  the  fact  that  they  had  never  asked  for  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  in  behalf  of  those  who  were  working  out  the  sentence  of  the 
commission.  To  his  opinion  I  will  now  add  that  of  Judge  Fisher 
as  given  in  his  charge  to  the  jury.  It  is  as  follows:  — 

"You  have  been  told,  gentlemen,  in  the  argument  of  this  case, 
that  those  who  were  tried  before  that  military  commission,  and 
hung  upon  its  findings,  were  themselves  the  victims  of  a  base  and 
disgraceful  conspiracy  to  murder.  Brave,  gallant,  and  honest  sol- 


300  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

diers  of  their  country  have  been  held  up  before  you  as  inhuman 
butchers  of  innocent  men.  It  has  been  said  in  support  of  this 
denunciation,  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  have,  in 
the  case  of  Milligan,  declared  that  the  military  court  which  tried 
Herold  and  others  for  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  an 
illegal  tribunal,  organized  without  law,  without  right,  and  without 
warrant  in  the  Constitution  —  a  mere  convocation  of  military  men, 
having  no  right  to  try  the  cause  committed  to  them  by  President 
Johnson ;  and  it  has  been  said  that  it  was  convoked  not  to  try  but 
to  condemn. 

"  In  my  humble  judgment  the  Supreme  Court  has  made  no  such 
decision.  If  so,  why  have  not  the  prisoners  now  confined  upon  the 
Dry  Tortugas  for  complicity  in  the  greatest  crime  of  the  age  been 
released  from  their  confinement?  They  have  sympathizing  friends 
enough  to  have  applied  any  such  decision  in  the  direction  of  their 
deliverance,  and  they  would  not  have  remained  there  a  week  after 
the  decision  had  been  made  to  the  effect  that  they  were  unlawfully 
restrained  of  their  liberty.  If  I  understand  the  decision  in  Milli- 
gan's  case  aright,  it  went  upon  the  ground  that  the  commission 
which  tried  Milligan  was  not  organized  in  obedience  to  the  act  of 
Congress  providing  for  the  punishment  of  such  crimes  as  he  was 
charged  with  committing,  and  the  opinion  of  the  majority  of  the 
court  went  upon  the  additional  ground  that  no  hostile  foot  had 
ever  pressed  the  soil  of  Indiana  at  the  time  when  he  was  arraigned 
before  a  military  tribunal  there,  and  that,  therefore,  that  tribunal 
which  condemned  him  for  acts  of  treason  committed  in  that  State 
had  no  authority  to  try  him,  notwithstanding  the  whole  nation  was 
involved  in  the  most  terrible  struggle  for  its  life.  The  majority 
opinion  being  thus  predicated  upon  a  misapprehension  of  historic 
truth,  we  could  not,  perhaps,  have  looked  for  a  more  rightful 
deduction. 

"Unprepared,  however,  as  all  loyal  hearts  were  for  such  an 
anouncement,  the  American  people  would  be  even  yet  more 
astounded  to  have  it  declared  by  any  court  in  this  country  that 
the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  has  not  the  power  in  time  of  war  to  institute  a 
military  commission  for  the  purpose  of  trying  a  gang  of  spies  and 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          30! 

traitors  who  have  found  their  way  within  the  intrenched  encamp 
ments  of  the  nation's  capital  to  take  the  life  of  the  chief  of  the 
army  and  navy,  to  assassinate  all  the  heads  of  the  executive  de 
partments,  in  the  interest  of  the  pretended  government  with  which 
the  federal  government  was  engaged  in  war.  They  who  maintain 
such  a  doctrine  profess  to  defend  it  upon  the  ground  that  no  such 
power  is  delegated  by  the  constitution,  as  they  did  who  could  find 
no  warrant  there  to  coerce  seceding  States  into  submission  to  the 
federal  authority ;  but  the  day  has  passed  by  when  honest  states 
men  will  longer,  if  they  ever  did,  regard  the  sovereignty  of  the 
federal  Union  as  possessing  no  powers  save  those  expressly  enum 
erated  in  the  Constitution. 

"The  government  of  the  United  States  was  doubtless  created  by 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  But  when  it  had  once  been 
spoken  into  being  it  stood  upon  the  same  level  with  other  nations, 
and  was  clothed  with  all  the  powers  incident  to  an  independent 
sovereignty  under  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nations,  and  among 
these  was  the  power,  in  time  of  war  or  great  public  emergency,  to 
arrest  and  inflict  upon  spies  and  traitors  the  most  summary  pun 
ishment,  whenever  and  wherever  the  strong  hand  of  military  justice 
can  be  laid  upon  them.  It  is  a  power  incident  to  the  right  and 
duty  of  self  preservation,  and  ought  to  be  exercised,  just  as  the 
individual  owes  it  to  himself  to  strike  down  the  assassin  who  is 
feeling  for  his  heartstrings,  without  waiting  to  lose  his  own  life,  in 
order  that  the  courts  of  justice  may,  at  their  leisure,  proceed  to 
try  the  felon  according  to  the  formularies  of  the  law  and  the  Con 
stitution.  The  right  of  self-defense  needs  not  to  be  inscribed  upon 
parchment,  either  for  individuals  or  for  sovereign  states.  The 
Almighty  impressed  this  right  and  duty  upon  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  men  long  before  he  wrote  the  decalogue  upon  the  tables  of  stone. 
To  say  that  this  government  has  not  the  power  in  time  of  war  to 
exercise  this  great  duty  of  self-preservation,  for  want  of  warrant  in 
the  Constitution,  is  to  condemn  the  action  of  the  government  in 
acquiring  from  France  and  Spain  and  Mexico  and  Russia  territory 
lying  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  original  thirteen  States,  because 
such  power  of  acquisition  and  growth  is  not  provided  for  by  the 
Constitution.  Both  these  powers  are  but  the  incidents  of  sove- 


302 


ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 


reignty,  requiring  no  warrant  in  written  governmental  charter: 
they  are  derived  from  the  common  law  of  nations,  and  are  co-ex 
istent  with  sovereignty. 

"  But  with  this  military  commission,  gentlemen,  you  have  no  con 
cern  at  this  time ;  whether  it  was  a  legal  or  illegal  tribunal,  is  not 
the  matter  on  which  you  are  now  called  to  decide.  The  oath  that 
you  have  taken  requires  that  you  shall  'well  and  truly  try,  and  true 
deliverance  make  between  the  United  States  of  America  and  John 
H.  Surratt,  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  whom  you  have  in  charge,  and 
a  true  verdict  give  according  to  your  evidence. '  The  prisoner 
stands  before  you  indicted  for  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln  on 
the  1 4th  day  of  April,  1865,  in  this  city.  About  the  time  and 
place  and  manner  of  the  death  of  your  late  President  no  contro 
versy  has  been  made  in  the  case.  If  there  had  been  your  recol 
lection  of  a  nation  in  tears,  and  of  a  whole  civilized  world  in 
mourning  would  have  revived  your  memory  of  the  sad  and 
terrible  fact.  The  only  question,  therefore,  for  you  to  determine 
is,  whether  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  participated  with  John  Wilkes 
Booth  and  the  others  named  in  the  indictment,  or  either  or  any  of 
them,  in  the  diabolical  crime.  If,  from  all  the  evidence  in  the  case, 
your  minds  shall  be  convinced  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  growing 
out  of  that  evidence  that  the  prisoner  did  co-operate  with  them ; 
if  that  shall  have  produced  a  moral  conviction  in  your  minds  that 
the  prisoner  did  participate  in  the  conspiracy  to  murder,  or  in  a 
plot  to  do  some  unlawful  act  which  resulted  in  this  foul  murder, 
no  consideration  as  to  the  legality  or  illegality  of  the  tribunal 
which  tried  the  prisoner's  mother;  no  feelings  of  sympathy  for 
other  members  of  the  family;  no  consideration  of  his  youth,  or 
that  other  lives  have  already  been  forfeited  for  the  crime,  should 
for  a  single  moment,  tempt  you  to  step  aside  from  the  plain  path 
way  of  duty. " 

The  last  paragraph  quoted  is  directed  to  some  of  the  many  art- 
lul  appeals  made  to  the  political  prejudices  or  to  the  feelings  of  the 
jury  to  swerve  them  from  the  duty  devolved  upon  them  by  their 
oath.  The  former  paragraphs  may  well  be  said  to  set  at  rest  for 
ever  the  question  of  the  right  of  a  government  to  defend  its  life 
when  the  occasion  requires  it  by  sending  offenders  against  its  life 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          303 

before  a  military  commission  for  trial.  This  question  may  be  taken 
as  settled,  as  is  the  question  of  the  right  of  the  federal  government 
to  coerce  into  submission  a  refractory  State.  The  opportunity 
thus  sought  by  the  prisoner's  counsel  to  foist  upon  the  public  mind 
the  assertion  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had  made 
a  decision  denying  to  the  government  this  right,  thus  gave  occasion 
not  only  for  denying  that  such  opinion  had  ever  been  delivered, 
but  also  for  showing  that  it  never  could  be. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  for  reasons  heretofore  given  the 
crime  charged  in  the  indictment  was  simply  that  of  murder  —  the 
murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  fact  of  his  being,  at  the  time  of  his  murder,  the  President  of 
the  United  States  was  not  mentioned.  The  treasonable  purpose  of 
that  murder  was  also  omitted  no  reference  being  made  to  the  poli 
tical  reasons  that  moved  the  conspirators  to  the  commission  of  the 
crime.  The  counsel  for  the  defense  contended  most  earnestly  that 
because  of  these  omissions  the  fact  of  the  official  position  of  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  and  of  the  political  motives  that  inspired  the  crime 
could  not  be  taken  into  consideration  in  the  trial  of  the  prisoner. 
They  argued  that  it  must  be  regarded  in  law  simply  as  the  murder  of 
a  man,  and  as  a  crime  no  more  henious  in  character  than  the  murder 
of  the  humblest  citizen.  Had  the  crime  of  treason  been  alleged  in 
the  indictment  the  defense  would  have  been  entitled  to  have  a  list  of 
the  witnesses  by  whom  the  government  expected  to  prove  the  crime 
in  advance  of  the  trial ;  and  it  would  have  taken  two  witnesses  to 
have  established  an  overt  act.  The  defense  contended  that  because 
they  were  not  entitled  to  these  advantages  under  this  indictment 
the  prosecution  could  derive  no  advantages  from  the  consideration 
of  these  facts ;  and  that  the  case  must  be  treated  simply  as  a  case 
of  murder.  The  spirit  of  their  argument  would  rather  indicate 
that  they  really  regarded  it  in  the  same  light  that  Miss  Anna  Sur- 
ratt  did,  as  "  nothing  more  than  the  death  of  the  meanest  nigger 
in  the  Union  army. "  The  following  is  Mr.  Pierrepont's  reply  to 
their  argument  on  this  point:  — 

"  Our  learned  friends  on  the  other  side  have  told  us,  in  the  pro 
gress  of  their  argument,  that  they  could  not  subscribe  in  the  least 

1  Testimony  of  L.  J.  Wiechmann,  p.  454,  Report  of  the  trial  of  John  H.  Surratt. 


304 


ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 


degree  to  the  doctrine  that  it  was  a  higher  crime  to  conspire  against 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  and  through  that  conspiracy 
commit  a  murder  upon  the  Chief  Magistrate,  than  it  was  to  murder 
the  humblest  vagabond  in  the  streets,  or  words  to  that  effect.  Now 
that  is  not  the  doctrine  of  a  statesman ;  it  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the 
Bible ;  it  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  law.  It  is  a  far  more  heinous 
crime  to  conspire  against  the  government  of  the  United  States  and 
to  murder  its  President  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  anarchy  and 
confusion  on  the  land,  than  to  murder  a  single  individual.  It  is 
because  its  consequences  are  so  much  more  terrible.  It  is  because 
it  is  involving  the  lives  of  hundreds  and  of  thousands.  It  is 
because  it  is  involving  considerations  affecting  the  stability,  the 
protection,  the  life,  and  the  liberty,  it  may  be,  of  a  nation.  The 
law  of  England,  which  I  have  cited,  but  which  it  would  seem,  my 
friends  have  not  read,  lays  it  down,  and  without  a  statute,  but  as 
the  common  law,  that  it  is  a  crime  of  such  heniousness  as  to  admit 
of  no  accessories. 

"They,  however,  undertake  to  say  that  the  crime  of  the  murder 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  war  or  great  civil 
commotion,  is  not  as  henious  a  crime  as  it  would  be  in  England  to 
murder  the  Chief  of  their  country ;  and  that  there  is  no  divinity 
about  our  government.  What  is  its  origin?  All  government  is 
either  of  God  or  the  devil,  and  they  will  have  to  take  their  choice. 
I  say  that  the  government  is  of  God,  and  that  no  other  govern 
ment  will  stand.  What  says  the  civilized  world  upon  this  subject? 
I  wrote  a  note  to  the  Secretary  of  State  two  days  ago,  asking 
him  to  send  me  the  letters  that  were  transmitted  from  the  different 
governments  of  the  civilized  world  upon  the  subject  of  this  murder, 
and  what  do  you  think  he  sent  me?  He  sent  me  the  note  I  hold 
in  my  hand  and  with  it  this  large  printed  volume.  It  takes  every 
line  and  word  of  that  book,  a  book  of  717  pages,  closely  printed, 
to  contain  the  letters  of  condolence  that  were  written  to  this  govern 
ment  from  the  foreign  governments  of  the  world.  Entire  Christen 
dom  wrote,  entire  Christendom  looked  upon  it  as  one  of  the  most 
horrible  of  crimes  —  one  that  required  every  nation,  even  to  the 
Turk,  to  write  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  their  abhorrence  of 
the  crime.  And,  gentlemen,  I  hold  in  my  hand  the  original  paper 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          305 

sent  by  some  13,000  rebel  prisoners,  and  our  prisoners,  at  Point 
Lookout.  Here  is  the  paper  in  which  these  rebel  prisoners,  met 
together,  passed  their  resolutions  of  condemnation,  and  their  curse 
upon  this  crime.  I  would  try  this  case  before  any  twelve  of  those 
rebel  prisoners,  and  feel  certain  of  a  verdict,  and  yet  the  gentlemen 
tell  us  this  murder  is  like  that  of  the  commonest  vagabond  that 
ever  walked  the  streets,  and  the  crime  no  higher.  Not  so  thought 
the  rebels;  not  so  thought  any  honorable  man  in  arms  against  us; 
not  so  thinks  any  right-minded  man  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.'1 

The  judge  in  giving  his  charge  to  the  jury,  addressing  himself 
to  this  point,  spoke  as  follows:  — 

"  Historians  and  text  writers  on  the  law  may  treat  of  the  heinous- 
ness  of  the  crime  of  imagining  the  death  of  a  weak  or  a  wicked 
king  or  of  a  wise  or  benignant  monarch,  but  you  know,  gentlemen, 
as  well  as  you  know  that  you  exist,  that  to  murder  the  duly  elected 
President  of  the  most  powerful  people  on  earth,  is  not  less  atrocious 
in  its  character  than  to  compass  the  death  of  a  king,  or  an  em 
peror,  albeit  he  may  have  sprang  from  the  loins  of  the  people, 
who  have  made  him  their  representative  head,  and  may  have  no 
royal  blood  coursing  through  his  veins.  You  may  be  told  that  it 
is  a  crime  surpassingly  heinous  to  take  or  compass  the  life  of  him 
who  has  occupied  a  throne  simply  because  he  may  be  the  king  of 
an  enslaved  people,  but  that  to  take  the  life  of  the  President  of  a 
free  republic  is  an  offense  of  no  greater  magnitude  than  to  murder 
the  'veriest  vagabond  that  walks  your  streets';  but  an  American 
jury  will  only  believe  this  doctrine  when  the  people  have  become 
so  demoralized  and  corrupt,  so  devoid  of  the  love  of  liberty  and 
patriotic  feeling,  as  to  prefer  to  have  a  king  and  ruler  foisted  upon 
them  by  the  accident  of  birth  or  fortunate  adventure,  rather  than 
have  the  making  of  their  own  selection  of  him  who  is  to  execute 
their  laws,  and,  for  the  time  being,  to  stand  as  the  representative 
head  of  their  collective  sovereignty. 

"It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  free  people  in  any  country 
will  ever  consider  it  a  more  henious  crime  to  kill  a  king,  or  even  to- 
desire  his  death,  than  it  is  to  assassinate  a  President.  It  is  of  no- 
avail  to  tell  you  that  to  surround  the  life  of  a  President  of  a  republic 
with  safeguards  as  sacred  and  powerful  as  those  which,  in  mon- 


306  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

archies,  are  thrown  about  a  king,  as  you  have  been  told  in  the 
argument,  is  a  modern  idea,  '  entertained  only  by  those  whose  eyes 
have  been  dazzled  by  visions  of  stars  and  garters,  and  who  are 
desirous  of  changing  our  free  institutions  for  a  monarchical  form  of 
government. ' 

"  On  the  contrary,  they  can  only  be  opposed  to  guarding  with 
sacred  vigilance  the  life  of  the  President  of  a  free  people  who  are 
themselves  prepared  to  submit  to  the  rule  of  a  despot.  Why  should 
the  people  be  less  proud  or  less  regardful  of  the  life  of  a  ruler 
selected  by  themselves,  from  among  themselves,  than  they  would 
be  of  the  life  of  him  who  claimed  to  rule  over  them  of  his  own 
right?  When  this  question  can  be  sensibly  answered,  I  shall  be 
willing  to  admit  that  the  life  of  a  President  is  less  worth  preserving 
than  that  of  a  king,  and  that  to  destroy  the  life  of  a  President  is  a 
crime  of  less  atrocity  than  to  merely  desire  the  death  of  a  prince ; 
but  not  till  then;  nor  do  I  believe  you  will." 

The  practical  legal  bearing  of  this  question  on  the  trial  was  as 
to  whether  the  prisoner,  being  proven  to  have  been  a  member  of 
the  conspiracy  which  resulted  in  the  death  of  President  Lincoln  by 
the  hands  of  a  fellow-conspirator,  should  be  held  as  a  principal  in 
the  crime,  or  only  an  accessory  before  the  fact.  In  other  words 
whether  the  court  and  jury  could  take  cognizance  of  the  official 
position  of  Abraham  Lincoln  without  its  being  alleged  in 
the  indictment.  If  he  could  be  regarded  as  a  principal  and  not 
as  an  accessory  he  could  be  held  equally  guilty  with  Booth 
although  he  might  not  have  been  present  and  assisting  in  the 
assassination. 

Practically,  however,  this  was  not  a  matter  of  any  consequence 
in  this  trial,  because  it  was  proven  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  prisoner 
was  actually  present,  acting  a  conspicious  part  in  the  execution  of 
the  plot.  It  was  also  proven  by  the  testimony  of  one  witness  whose 
testimony  was  in  no  way  impeached  that  it  was  he,  and  not  Spang- 
ler,  who  prepared  and  fitted  the  bar  to  the  door  to  prevent  Booth 
being  followed  into  the  box  at  the  theatre.  The  summing  up  of 
the  evidence  by  Judge  Pierrepont  in  his  concluding  speech  is  one 
of  the  most  admirable  and  masterly  efforts  that  can  be  anywhere 
found.  In  the  first  place  it  is  a  model  of  judicial  fairness  and 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE   DEFENSE.  307 

honesty.  To  him  the  prisoner  was  evidently  a  pure  abstraction 
toward  whom  he  had  no  feelings.  His  only  effort  was  to  weigh 
impartially  the  evidence  in  the  case,  and  to  give  to  it  a  fair  and 
common  sense  interpretation.  He  brushed  away  all  side  issues 
and  every  effort  of  the  prisoner's  counsel  to  bring  the  trial  under 
the  influence  of  political  and  of  religious  perjudices,  and  held  them 
strictly  to  the  question  of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  prisoner,  as 
shown  by  the  evidence.  Again  it  was  a  model  effort  in  its  logical 
ability  in  bringing  the  evidence  before  the  jury.  He  had  so  com 
pletely  analyzed  the  testimony  that  he  was  able  to  present  it  in  its 
logical  connection  as  to  time,  purpose,  and  circumstances ;  tracing 
the  plot  through  the  evidence  before  him,  from  its  incipiency  to  its 
completion,  step  by  step,  showing  the  bearing  and  relation  that  one 
thing  sustained  to  another  in  a  most  conclusive  and  unanswerable 
way. 

He  had  systematically  and  logically  arranged  the  testimony, 
which  had  necessarily  been  presented  in  a  most  desultory  and  un 
satisfactory  way,  from  the  fact  that  the  evidence  had  to  be  taken 
just  as  witnesses  were  found  to  be  present.  By  great  care  and 
labor  the  judge  had  arranged  the  evidence  just  in  the  order  in  which 
he  would  have  chosen  to  introduce  it  had  the  witnesses  all  been  at 
his  command  at  the  moment  he  would  have  chosen  to  use  them. 
Having  thus  arranged  the  testimony,  he  simply  read  it  to  the  jury, 
stopping  when  necessary  to  comment  on  it  and  interpret  it.  His 
fair,  natural,  common  sense  interpretation  of  the  facts  proven 
could  not  fail  to  bring  conviction  to  every  intelligent,  and  candid 
mind.  That  the  proof  before  him  had  brought  to  the  mind  of  this 
eminent  and  experienced  advocate  and  jurist  the  most  complete 
conviction  of  the  prisoner's  guilt,  is  shown  throughout  his  argument. 
He  did  not,  however,  leave  the  matter  of  his  own  convictions  to  be 
the  subject  merely  of  inference,  but  left  himself  on  record  on  this 
point  as  follows :  - 

"  In  this  case  I  feel  justified  in  saying,  that  the  prisoner  is  proved 
to  be  guilty,  and  in  as  overwhelming  a  manner  as  any  man  was 
ever  proven  guilty  in  the  history  of  jurisprudence.  I  appeal  to 
any  judge,  any  lawyer,  any  man  who  has  had  experience,  if  there 
was  ever  a  case  where  the  guilt  of  the  party,  was  more  clearly 


308  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

demonstrated.  He  is  proven  guilty  not  only  beyond  a  reasonable 
doubt,  but  beyond  the  possibility  of  any  doubt.  There  is  not  a  man  of 
you  who  can  doubt  it.  It  has  been  a  strange  case.  It  was  a  strange 
providence  that  brought  the  man  back  here  to  be  tried.  And 
now  that  he  is  here,  you,  the  twelve  men  who  in  the  providence 
of  God  have  been  selected  to  try  the  case,  are  to  say  whether 
what  he  has  done  is  right  or  not  right ;  whether  he  is  guilty  or 
not  guilty. 

"  That  is  for  you  to  say,  not  for  me.  I  know  he  is  proved  guilty. 
About  that  there  can  be  no  doubt.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  of 
you  have  any  doubt  whatever  on  that  subject." 

That  the  purpose  of  this  conspiracy  was  to  assassinate  the  heads 
of  the  government  from  its  very  first  inception,  is  made  clear  by 
the  whole  run  of  the  evidence  brought  out  on  the  two  trials. 
Atzerodt,  in  his  confession,  which  he  had  gotten  up  to  be  used  in  his 
defence,  claims  that  he  was  a  member  of  a  conspiracy  to  kidnap 
the  President,  and  carry  him  to  Richmond.  John  H.  Surratt,  in 
his  Rockville  lecture,  claims  the  same  thing.  They  both  claim 
that  when  Booth  laid  aside  this  plan  as  impracticable,  and  proposed 
to  change  it  to  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate,  that  they  withdrew, 
and  would  have  nothing  further  to  do  with  it.  It  is  evident  that 
the  statements  of  both  are  false,  both  as  regards  the  original  purpose 
of  the  conspiracy,  and  also  their  abandonment  of  it.  Surratt  in 
his  confessions  to  McMillen  stated  that  he  received  a  letter  from 
Booth  in  Montreal  on  the  loth  of  April.  This  letter  was  written 
from  New  York,  and  summoned  him  to  Washington  at  once,  as  it 
had  become  necessary  for  them  to  change  their  plans  and  to  act 
quickly. 

He  left  Montreal  in  obedience  to  this  summons  on  the  I2th  of 
April,  and  was  in  Elmira  on  the  morning  of  the  I3th.  In  his 
defense  of  an  alibi,  he  tried  to  prove  that  he  remained  at  Elmira 
until  after  the  1 5th,  and  then  returned  to  Montreal,  where  he  arrived 
on  the  1 8th. 

His  counsel  argued  that  the  plan  up  to  that  time  had  been  to 
rapture,  and  that  it  was  then  for  the  first  time  that  Booth  had  de 
termined  to  assassinate ;  that  this  was  the  change  of  plan  referred 
to  in  his  letter,  and  that,  as  Surratt,  according  to  their  plea,  never 


TREATMENT   OF   WITNESSES  BY   THE  DEFENSE.          309 

saw  him  after  this  change  of  plan  had  been  determined  upon,  he 
knew  nothing  about  it,  and  was  never  a  member  of  a  conspiracy 
to  assassinate.  He  admitted  that  he  left  Montreal  in  response  to 
Booth's  letter,  but  claimed  that  he  did  not  go  any  further  than 
Elmira,  in  his  defense. 

This,  also,  is  his  story  in  his  Rockville  lecture,  in  which  he  admits 
that  he  was  a  member  of  the  conspiracy  to  capture  the  President, 
but  asserts  that  he  was  never  a  member  of  the  conspiracy  to  assas 
sinate  him.  Why  did  he  obey  Booth's  summons  which  required 
him  to  come  at  once  to  Washington  ?  Why  did  he  come  by  way  of 
Elmira?  He  says  in  his  lecture  that  he  went  to  Elmira  in  the 
interest  of  a  plan  to  liberate  the  rebel  prisoners  that  were  held  at 
that  place.  He  had  just  been  to  Richmond,  carrying  dispatches 
from  Davis  and  Benjamin  to  their  agents  in  Canada.  Active  meas 
ures  were  at  once  resorted  to  to  accomplish  the  assassinations  that 
had  been  planned  without  delay,  and  had  the  scheme  been  fully 
realized  it  was  no  doubt  a  part  of  this  plan  to  bring  into  active 
service  at  once  all  the  secret  treasonable  military  organizations 
throughout  the  North,  liberate  all  the  rebel  prisoners  held  in  North 
ern  prisons,  and  inaugurate  a  new  rebellion  in  the  North,  in  aid  of 
the  existing  rebellion  in  the  South.  Surratt  admits  that  he  went 
to  Elmira  on  this  business.  He  went  there  no  doubt  to  arrange 
with  other  conspirators  there  for  carrying  out  this  purpose  when 
notified  of  the  success  of  the  assassination  plot.  No  doubt  similar 
arrangements  had  been  made  at  Chicago  to  liberate  the  prisoners 
at  Camp  Douglass ;  and  perhaps  at  other  places.  The  partial  fail 
ure  of  the  assassination  plot,  and  the  signal  triumph  of  our  arms, 
admonished  these  Northern  traitors  that  they  had  better  not  enter 
the  arena  of  actual  war,  and  frustrated  all  the  plans  of  Jefferson 
Davis  and  his  Canada  Cabinet.  Surratt's  admissions  are  right  in 
the  line  of  our  theory,  and  tend  to  prove  its  correctness ;  but  his 
claim  that  he  was  only  a  member  of  a  conspiracy  to  capture  is  mani 
festly  untrue.  Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  that  eminent  jurist, 
Judge  Pierrepont,  founded  on  a  careful  consideration  of  all  the  evi 
dence  on  this  point.  "  Now  you  see  gentlemen,  what  is  meant  by 
a  change  of  plan.  In  the  spring  of  1864  the  plan  was  to  murder 
Mr.  Lincoln.  They  laid  various  plans  for  its  accomplishment. 


310  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

They  thought  to  do  it  as  he  went  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  by  the 
telescopic  rifle,  and  they  did  not  intend,  in  the  event  of  concluding  to 
carry  out  that  plan,  to  let  his  wife  or  his  child  stand  in  their  way. 
They  then  thought  to  do  it  by  having  Payne  call  upon  Mr.  Lincoln, 
get  into  conversation  with  him,  listen  to  his  stories,  seem  to  be  inter 
ested  in  them,  and  then,  at  that  moment,  to  strike  the  knife  home, 
deep  into  his  heart.  They  at  another  time  thought  to  poison  him, 
and  for  this  purpose  tried  the  cup ;  but  it  seemed  that  that  failed 
them  once,  and,  as  Booth  said,  might  fail  them  again.  They  finally 
concluded  they  would  try  to  kill  him  in  the  theatre,  instead  of  on 
his  way  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  and  have  Payne  kill  Secretary 
Seward  at  his  house.  That  plan  they  carried  out.  But,  gentle 
men,  notwithstanding  this  change  of  plan,  never  was  there  for  more 
than  a  year  any  other  purpose  than  to  murder.  They  had  long 
since  abandoned  the  idea  of  kidnapping,  for  that  required  too  much 
machinery,  too  many  men,  and  subjected  them  to  too  much 
danger;  and  the  changes  in  plan  that  had  taken  place  recently  were 
simply  as  to  the  mode  of  killing,  and  the  men  who  should  strike  the 
fatal  blow."  Here  we  have  the  mature  opinion  of  an  eminent  jurist, 
founded  on  a  thorough  and  careful  examination  of  all  the  evidence, 
and  we  feel  confident  that  no  candid,  intelligent  man  who  studies 
all  the  evidence  with  care  can  come  to  any  other. 

Having  had  occasion  to  follow  the  history  of  this  sad  affair  from 
its  incipiency  to  its  conclusion,  as  revealed  by  the  evidence  pro 
duced  before  the  commission,  and  that  brought  out  on  the  civil 
trial,  my  purpose  in  writing  this  book  has  been  fulfilled.  It  was, 
first,  to  correct  many  grave  errors  in  public  opinion  that  have 
grown  out  of  a  wilful  and  ingenious  suppression  of  the  truth  and 
an  unblushing  publication  of  falsehoods,  in  order  to  cover  up  from 
view  the  fact  that  the  assassination  of  President  Lincoln  was  the 
result  of  a  deep-laid  political  scheme  to  subvert  the  government 
of  the  United  States  in  aid  of  the  rebellion ;  that  it  was  not 
merely  the  rash  act  of  Booth  and  his  co-conspirators,  to  whom 
the  work  was  intrusted ;  but  that  behind  these  stood  Jefferson 
Davis  and  his  Canada  cabinet ;  that  it  was  the  work  of  a  great 
conspiracy. 

The  second  object  of  the  author  was  to  vindicate  the  govern- 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  31  \ 

ment  in  its  method  of  dealing  with  the  assassins,  and  to  show  that 
the  decisions  of  the  commission  were  founded  on  adequate  testi 
mony.  And,  lastly,  to  so  gather  up  and  present  the  truth,  as  shown 
by  the  evidence,  that  his  work  might  be  of  some  service  to  the 
future  historian.  He  feels  that  he  has  kept  faithful  to  his  purpose 
to  present  nothing  but  the  truth.  He  feels  that  by  this  he  has  not 
only  vindicated  the  government,  but  that  also  in  doing  this  he  has 
vindicated  the  commission.  He  has  shown  that  a  military  com 
mission  was  the  only  tribunal  before  which  the  conspirators  and 
assassins  could  properly  be  tried  ;  that  the  right  of  the  government 
to  try  offenses  of  this  character  is  a  power  inherent  in  sovereignty 
as  is  the  right  of  personal  self-defence  a  right  that  inheres  to  the 
individual ;  that  the  laws  of  war  recognize  this  right  and  justify  its 
exercise.  The  wisdom  of  the  government  in  dealing  thus  sum 
marily  with  these  offenders  was  seen  in  its  effect  on  the  Canada 
conspirators,  who  at  first  were  swearing  that  "  they  were  not  done 
yet,"  but  who  were  driven  to  their  holes  by  the  prompt  and  wise 
action  of  the  government  in  dealing  thus  summarily  with  their 
hired  assassins  as  fast  as  they  were  caught.  The  government  thus 
compelled  its  enemies  to  respect  its  authority. 

And,  finally,  the  result  of  the  trial  of  one  of  the  conspirators 
before  a  civil  court,  more  than  anything  else,  vindicates  its  wisdom 
in  sending  these  prisoners  before  a  military  tribunal  for  trial. 

Side  Lights  on  the   Conspiracy. 

John  Matthews  gives  us  the  substance  of  a  paper  put  into  his 
hands  by  Booth  on  the  afternoon  of  the  assassination,  which  closed 
as  follows:  "Men  who  love  their  country  better  than  their  lives  — 
Booth,  Payne,  Atzerodt,  and  Herold."  '  It  will  be  observed  that 
Booth  here  identifies  Atzerodt  with  the  conspiracy  and  the  evi 
dence  shows  that  he  relied  on  Atzerodt  at  that  time  to  perform 
the  part  he  assigned  to  him  :  to  assassinate  Vice-President  Johnson. 
He  had  transferred  Atzerodt  from  the  Pennsylvania  House,  where 
he  had  been  boarding,  to  the  Kirkwood  House  on  the  morning  of 
that  day,  having  engaged  his  room  but  for  one  day,  and  paying  for 

1  In  a  communication  to  a  Philadelphia  paper. 


3  I  2  ASSASSINA  TION   OF  LIXCOLN. 

it  in  advance.  This  change  was  made  because  the  Vice-President 
was  stopping  at  the  Kirkwood. 

That  Booth  had  visited  Atzerodt  at  his  room  during  the  day  was 
shown  by  the  fact  that  his  coat,  containing  his  bank  book  and 
handkerchiefs  marked  in  his  name,  was  found  in  Atzerodt's  room 
where  he  had  hung  it  up  and  then  forgotten  to  take  it  again  when 
he  left.  That  the  purpose  was  a  murderous  purpose  was  shown  by 
the  fact  that  a  pistol,  loaded  and  capped,  together  with  a  large 
dagger,  were  found  hid  away  in  the  bed.  Booth  had  been  there 
schooling  Atzerodt  in  his  part,  and  had  had  such  assurances  from 
Atzerodt  that  he  felt  safe  in  coupling  his  name  with  his  own  and 
those  of  Payne  and  Herold  in  the  paper  referred  to.  Matthews 
stated  that  whilst  he  was  in  conversation  with  Booth,  General  Grant 
passed  rapidly  down  the  Avenue  in  an  open  carriage,  having  his 
baggage  along  with  him ;  that  he  called  Booth's  attention  to  this 
fact,  when  Booth  left  him  abruptly  and  galloped  down  the  avenue 
after  General  Grant.  Why  did  he  do  this?  What  did  this  mean? 
\Vhen  Atzerodt  had  made  his  way  into  the  country,  and  was  eating 
his  dinner  on  Sabbath,  the  1 6th,  at  the  house  of  Hezekiah  Metz,  he 
was  asked  if  it  was  true,  as  had  been  reported,  that  General  Grant 
had  been  killed,  answered,  "If  the  man  who  was  to  follow  him  had 
done  so,  it  was  likely  to  be  true. "  This  explains  Booth's  purpose 
in  galloping  after  General  Grant  when  he  saw  that  he  was  about  to 
leave  the  city.  He  hurried  to  inform  O'Laughlin  of  the  fact  and 
to  have  him  follow  the  General  and  assassinate  him  on  the  road  or 
at  the  end  of  his  journey,  and  had  told  Atzerodt  of  this  arrange 
ment.  We  can  in  this  way  account  for  the  fact  that  Atzerodt  knew 
that  a  man  had  had  orders  to  follow  him.  The  fact  that  Booth,  in 
the  paper  referred  to,  coupled  Atzerodt's  name  with  his  own  and 
those  of  Payne  and  Herold  as  "  men  who  loved  their  country  better 
than  their  lives"  shows  that  he  fully  expected  Atzerodt  to  perform 
the  part  he  had  assigned  him  in  the  tragedy.  O'Laughlin  was  no 
doubt  the  man  who  had  orders  to  follow  the  General,  but  upon 
reflection,  wisely  declined  to  do  so. 

Dr.  Mudd  voluntarily  confessed  to  Captain  Button,  who  had 
charge  of  the  convicts  who  were  sent  to  the  Dry  Tortugas,  whilst 
on  their  voyage  thither,  that  he  knew  Booth  when  he  came  to  his 


TREA  TMENT  OF  WITNESSES  B  Y  THE  DEFENSE.  3  1 3 

house  on  the  morning  of  the  1 5th  of  April;  and  said  that  he 
denied  it  because  he  was  afraid  of  endangering  his  own  life,  and 
the  lives  of  his  family.  He  also  admitted  that  he  went  to  Wash 
ington  by  appointment  to  introduce  Booth  to  Surratt,  and  that 
Wiechmann's  testimony  on  this  point  was  true.  Why,  if  innocent, 
should  he  have  been  afraid  to  let  it  be  known  that  Booth  and 
Herold  called  at  his  house  on  that  morning,  and  what  he  had  done 
for  them?  This  fear  could  only  have  come  from  a  consciousness 
of  guilt,  and  shows  that  he  not  only  knew  what  they  had  done,  but, 
also,  that  he  was  implicated  in  their  guilt  by  his  previous  knowledge 
of  what  they  were  going  to  do.  John  H.  Surratt,  after  he  had 
been  set  at  liberty,  delivered  a  lecture  at  Rockville,  Maryland,  in 
which  he  denied  that  he  ever  knew  of  the  plot  to  assassinate,  but 
admitted  that  he  was  a  member  of  a  conspiracy  to  capture  Presi 
dent  Lincoln  and  carry  him  a  prisoner  to  Richmond.  He  asserts 
that  this  was  Booth's  purpose  whilst  he  was  co-operating  with  him, 
and  that  they  had  spent  a  great  deal  of  money  ($IO,OOO)  in 
preparations  to  effect  their  object.  He  claims  that  neither  the 
Richmond  government,  nor  its  agents  in  Canada,  knew  anything 
about  their  scheme,  and  that  they  alone  were  responsible  for  it. 
Where  then  did  they  get  their  $10,000  to  spend  on  it?  They 
were  both  without  means  of  their  own,  and  without  employment. 
The  Rockville  lecture  is  simply  a  plausible  tissue  of  falsehoods, 
well  put  together,  but  altogether  inconsistant  with  the  whole  tenure 
of  the  evidence  in  the  case.  It  is  contradicted  at  almost  every 
point  by  the  testimony  we  have  had  under  review.  Yet  its  admis 
sions  are  important,  as  they  establish  the  theory  of  the  conspiracy 
which  we  have  maintained.  He  admits  that  he  was  engaged  in 
the  secret  service  of  the  Confederate  government  almost  constantly 
from  the  time  he  left  college  in  the  summer  of  1861,  and  that  he 
enjoyed  that  service  greatly,  and  was  very  active  in  it.  He  claims 
that  he  was  entrusted  with  dispatches  for  the  agents  of  that  govern 
ment  in  Canada,  and  that  he  passed  from  the  one  place  to  the 
other  frequently.  He  admits  that  he  reached  Montreal  on  the  6th 
of  April  with  dispatches  from  Davis  and  Benjamin  to  Thompson. 
Of  course  he  does  not  say  that  he  also  carried  Bills  of  Exchange 
on  Liverpool  at  the  same  time  for  $70,000,  or  that  he  carried 


314  A  SSA  SSINA  TWN  OF  LINCOLN. 

funds  at  any  time ;  but  we  have  had  the  proof  of  this  fact.  He 
admits  that  he  went  from  Montreal  on  the  I2th  of  April,  to  Elmira, 
New  York,  and  claims  that  he  remained  there  until  after  the  assas 
sination. 

This  we  have  seen  was  proven  to  be  a  falsehood,  yet  his  purpose 
in  going  to  Elmira,  as  claimed  by  himself,  confirms  our  theory  that 
the  plan  of  the  conspirators  was  in  connection  with  the  assassina 
tions  which  they  had  planned  to  get  up  a  Northern  rebellion  in  aid 
of  that  of  the  South,  through  the  agency  of  the  secret  disloyal 
organizations  with  whom  they  were  in  correspondence  throughout 
the  Northwestern  and  Middle  States,  and  to  liberate  all  the  rebel 
prisoners  held  in  Northern  prisons  to  augment  their  forces,  and  in 
the  state  of  anarchy  and  confusion,  consequent  upon  the  depriva 
tion  of  the  government  of  a  civil  head,  and  the  army  of  a  lawful 
commander,  they  thus  intended  inaugurating  a  reign  of  terror 
throughout  the  North  that  would  make  a  further  prosecution  of  the 
war  impossible,  and  by  this  means  establish  the  Southern  Confed 
eracy.  Surratt  says  in  his  lecture  that  he  went  to  Elmira  for  the 
purpose  of  preparing  for  the  release  of  the  more  than  five  thousand 
rebel  prisoners  that  were  held  at  that  place.  The  author,  after  a 
very  careful  scrutiny  of  all  the  evidence  relating  to  the  question  of 
Surratt's  presence  in  Washington  on  the  night  of  the  assassination, 
and  of  his  participation  in  it,  has  not  hesitated  to  express  the 
opinion  that  this  was  proven.  By  all  legal  rules  the  plea  of  an 
alibi  failed  as  the  vast  preponderance  of  evidence  went  to  prove 
his  presence  as  charged.  But  even  if  we  admit  that  he  was  at 
Elmira,  as  claimed,  on  the  night  of  the  assassination,  and  that  he 
remained  there  until  the  i6th  of  April,  he  is  not  by  this  admission 
disconnected  with  the  conspiracy,  but  was  by  his  own  admission 
acting  there  in  the  interest  of  its  purposes  by  setting  at  large  the 
five  thousand  rebel  prisoners  held  there  by  the  government.  The 
effort  to  aid  the  rebellion  by  this  step  was  contingent  upon  the 
accomplishment  of  all  of  the  assassinations  that  had  been  planned. 
The  failure  to  do  this  rendered  his  mission  there  useless.  If  he 
was  there,  he  was  there  in  the  interest  of  the  conspiracy.  That  he 
had  all  of  its  guilt  upon  his  conscience  is  shown  by  the  facts  of  his 
flight  and  concealment. 


TREATMENT  OF  WITNESSES  BY  THE  DEFENSE.  315 

Thompson  and  his  gang  claimed,  in  the  fall  of  1864,  it  will  be 
remembered,  that  they  had  eight  hundred  men  hid  away  in  Chicago 
for  the  purpose  of  liberating  the  rebel  prisoners  held  in  Camp  Doug 
lass.  They  were  only  waiting  for  a  safe  opportunity,  for  which  they 
were  planning  to  secure  an  opportune  moment.  Why  did  Vallan- 
digham  break  his  parole  in  the  summer  of  1864  and  return  to 
Ohio  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  governorship  of  that  state?  It 
was  no  doubt  in  the  interest  of  this  new  rebellion  that  had  been 
planned,  and  that  he  might  be  in  a  position  to  carry  out  the  details 
of  these  nefarious  schemes.  It  will  be  remembered  that  he  had 
been  elected  Supreme  Commander  of  the  order  of  American  Knights 
at  their  annual  meeting  in  February,  1863.  During  Vallan- 
digham's  enforced  absence,  Robert  Holloway  acted  as  Lieutenant- 
General,  or  Deputy  Supreme  Commander,  and  Doctor  Massey  of 
Ohio  was  Secretary  of  State.  The  organization  was  a  military  one, 
of  which  Vallandigham  was  recognized  as  General,  and  had  a 
complete  army  organization,  and  was,  in  1864,  arming,  drilling,  and 
preparing  for  a  Northern  rebellion,  and  the  accomplishment  of  the 
assassinations  that  were  planned  and  arranged  for  was  no  doubt  to 
have  been  the  signal  for  a  general  uprising.  It  may  be  asked, 
why,  if  this  theory  be  correct,  was  not  this  purpose  carried  out? 
We  answer  simply  because  that  God  who  planted,  and  has  hitherto 
watched  over  our  nation,  frustrated  the  scheme.  He  so  ordered 
the  events  of  his  providence  that  the  carrying  out  of  this  wicked 
scheme  became  manifestly  impossible.  The  plan  to  deprive  the 
government  of  a  civil  head  and  the  army  of  a  lawful  commander 
failed.  The  collapse  of  the  rebellion  was  precipitated  so  rapidly 
that  it  was  manifestly  useless  to  attempt  to  give  it  aid.  The  valor, 
prowess,  skill,  and  loyalty  of  our  victorious  legions  was  a  menace  to 
copperheadism.  This  secret  army  concluded  that  discretion  was 
the  better  part  of  valor,  and  sought  safety  in  seclusion,  but  not  quite 
in  silence.  They  still  continued  to  hiss. 

To  God's  over-ruling  and  protecting  care  we  owe  our  thanks  for 
the  preservation  of  our  government,  and  for  the  peace  and  prosperity 
with  which  we  have  been  blessed,  and  it  is  in  Him  alone  that  we 
can  found  our  hopes  for  the  future.  Let  us  reverently  study  and 
learn  the  lessons  of  our  great  civil  war,  that  we  may  learn  to  avert 


316  ASSASSINATION  OF  LINCOLN. 

future  judgments  by  putting  away  all  our  idols,  and  all  the  abom 
inations  of  our  national  life,  remembering  that  it  is  righteousness 
alone  that  exalteth  a  nation,  and  gives  to  it  peace  and  prosperity, 
and  that  sin  is  not  only  a  reproach  to  any  people,  but  that  national 
sins,  if  persisted  in,  justified  and  incorporated  into  national  policy, 
will  inevitably  call  down  the  judgments  of  a  holy,  righteous,  and 
just  God. 


APPENDIX. 


PREFACE   TO   APPENDIX. 


IN  presenting  the  great  argument  of  the  Hon.  John  A.  Bingham,  Assistant  Judge 
Advocate,  on  the  trial  of  the  assassins,  the  author  feels  that  he  does  not  need  to  offer 
an  apology  to  his  readers,  notwithstanding  its  length. 

In  addition  to  what  he  has  already  said  by  way  of  commending  it  to  the  careful 
perusal  of  his  readers,  he  will  add  by  way  of  preface,  the  following  extracts  from  Barnes's 
4Oth  Congress,  Vol.  I,  showing  the  light  in  which  that  great  effort  was  viewed  by 
competent  judges  at  the  time;  and  also  giving  extracts  from  his  great  argument  before 
the  United  States  Senate  on  the  articles  of  impeachment  found  against  Andrew  Johnson, 
President  of  the  United  States,  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors,  in  vindication  of  the 
high  encomiums  bestowed  by  him  on  this  distinguished  statesman  and  advocate. 

EXTRACTS  FROM  "THE  FORTIETH  CONGRESS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES." 
BY  WILLIAM  H.  BARNES: — IST  VOL.,  4OTH  CONGRESS. 

Mr.  Bingham  served  as  Special  Judge  Advocate  in  the  great  trial  of  the  conspirators, 
who  were  tried  for  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  etc.  Immense  labor  devolved 
upon  him  during  this  difficult  and  protracted  trial,  and  for  eight  weeks  his  arduous  duties 
allowed  him  but  brief  intervals  of  rest.  He  occupied  nine  hours  in  the  delivery  of  the 
closing  arguments,  in  which  he  ably  elucidated  the  law  and  the  testimony  in  the  case, 
and  conclusively  proved  the  guilt  of  the  conspirators.  Mr.  Bingham's  success  in  this 
great  trial  attracted  general  attention,  and  awakened  a  wide-spread  curiosity  to  know 
his  history.  Soon  after  the  close  of  the  trial,  a  correspondent  of  the  Philadelphia  Press, 
having  expressed  the  deep  interest  he  had  felt  in  arriving  at  a  well  founded  conclusion 
as  to  "the  guilt  of  the  conspirators  and  the  constitutionality  of  the  court,"  wrote  as 
follows:  — 

"  Grant  me  space  in  your  columns  to  give  expression  to  my  most  unqualified  admira 
tion  of  the  great  arguments,  on  these  two  main  points,  presented  to  the  court  by  the 
Special  Judge  Advocate,  Gen.  John  A.  Bingham.  In  the  entire  range  of  my  reading,  I 
have  known  of  no  productions  that  have  so  literally  led  me  captive.  For  careful  analysis, 
logical  argumentation,  profound  and  most  extensive  research;  for  overwhelming 
unravelment  of  complications  that  would  have  involved  an  ordinary  mind  only  with 
inextricable  bewilderment,  and  for  a  literal  rending  to  tatters  of  all  the  metaphysical 
subleties  of  the  array  of  legal  talent  engaged  on  the  other  side,  I  know  of  no  two  pro 
ductions  in  the  English  language  superior  to  these.  They  are  literally  as  the  spear  of 
Ithuriel,  dissolving  the  hardest  substances  at  their  touch;  as  the  thread  of  Daedalus, 
leading  out  of  the  labyrinths  of  error,  no  matter  how  thick  and  mazy.  Not  Locke  or 
Bacon  were  more  profound;  not  Daniel  Webster  was  clearer  and  more  penetrating;  not 
Chillingworth  was  more  logical.  I  feel  sure  that  the  author  of  these  two  unrivalled 
papers  must  possess  a  legal  mind  unrivalled  in  America,  and  must  be,  too,  one  of  our 
rising  statesmen.  But  who  .is  John  A.  Bingham,  who  by  his  industry  and  learning  dis- 

319 

w 


32O  PREFACE    TO  APPENDIX. 

played  on  this  wonderful  trial,  has  placed  the  country  under  such  a  heavy  debt  of 
obligation?  He  may  be  well  known  to  others  moving  in  a  public  sphere,  like  yourself, 
but  to  me,  so  absorbed  in  a  different  line  of  duty,  he  has  appeared  so  suddenly,  and 
yet  with  such  vividness,  that  I  long  to  know  some,  at  least,  of  his  antecedents." 

Upon  which  the  editor  remarked:  — 

"  The  question  of  our  esteemed  correspondent  is  natural  to  one  who  has  not,  probably, 
watched  the  individual  actors  on  the  great  stage  of  public  affairs  with  the  interest  of  the 
historical  and  political  student.  We  are  not  surprised  that  the  arguments  of  Mr.  Bing- 
ham  before  the  military  commission  should  have  filled  him  with  delight.  It  was  worthy 
of  the  great  subject  confided  to  that  accomplished  statesman  by  the  Government,  and 
of  his  own  fame.  When  the  assassins  of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  sent  for  trial  before  the 
military  court  by  President  Johnson,  the  Government  wisely  left  the  whole  management 
to  Judge  Holt  and  his  eloquent  associate,  Mr.  Bingham,  and  to  the  latter  was  committed 
the  stupendous  labor  of  sifting  the  mass  of  evidence,  of  replying  to  the  corps  of  lawyers 
for  the  defence,  of  setting  forth  the  guilt  of  the  accused  and  of  vindicating  the  policy 
and  the  duty  of  the  executive  in  an  exigency  so  novel  and  so  full  of  tragic  solemnity. 
The  crime  was  so  enormous,  and  the  trial  of  those  who  committed  it  so  important  in  all 
its  issues,  immediate,  contingent  and  remote,  as  to  awaken  an  excitement  that  embraced 
all  nations.  The  murder  itself  was  almost  forgotten  by  those  who  wished  to  screen  the 
murderers,  and  the  most  wicked  theories  were  broached  and  sown  broadcast  by  men, 
who,  under  cloak  of  reverence  for  what  they  called  the  law,  toiled  with  herculean  energy 
to  weaken  the  arm  of  the  Government,  extended  in  time  of  war  to  save  the  servants  of 
the  people  from  being  slaughtered  by  assassins  in  public  places,  and  tracked  even  to 
their  firesides  by  the  agents  and  friends  of  slavery.  These  poisons  of  plausibility, 
blunting  the  sharpest  horrors  of  any  age,  and  sanctifying  the  most  hellish  offenses, 
required  an  antidote  as  swift  to  cure.  Mr.  Bingham's  two  great  arguments,  alluded 
to  by  our  correspondent,  have  supplied  the  remedy.  They  are  monuments  of  reflection, 
research,  and  argumentation;  and  they  are  presented  in  the  language  of  a  scholar  and 
with  the  fervor  of  an  orator.  In  the  great  volume  of  proof  and  counter-proof,  rhetoric, 
and  controversy  that  forever  preserves  the  record  of  this  great  trial,  the  efforts  of 
Mr.  Bingham  will  ever  remain  to  be  first  studied  with  an  eager  and  admiring  interest. 
That  they  came,  after  all  that  has  and  can  be  said  against  the  Government,  is  rather 
an  inducement  to  their  more  satisfactory  and  critical  consideration.  For  from  that 
study  the  American  student  and  citizen  must,  more  than  ever,  realize  how  irresistible  is 
Truth  when  in  conflict  with  Falsehood,  and  how  poor  and  puerile  are  all  the  professional 
tricks  of  the  lawyer  when  opposed  to  the  moral  power  of  the  patriot." 

In  Congress  Mr.  Bingham  has  had  a  distinguished  career,  marked  by  important  ser 
vices  to  the  country.  In  the  XXXVIIth  Congress  he  was  earnest  and  successful  in 
advocating  many  important  measures  to  promote  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war, 
which  had  just  begun.  Returning  to  Congress  in  1865,  after  an  absence  of  two  years, 
he  at  once  took  a  prominent  position.  Upon  the  formation  of  the  joint  committee  on 
Reconstruction,  December  I4th,  1865,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  nine  members  on  the 
part  of  the  House.  He  was  active  in  advocating  the  great  measures  of  Reconstruction, 
which  were  proposed  and  passed  in  the  XXXIXth  and  XLth  Congresses.  The  House 
of  Representatives  having  resolved  that  Andrew  Johnson  should  be  impeached  for 
"high  crimes  and  misdemeanors,"  Mr.  Bingham  was  appointed  on  the  committee  to 
which  was  intrusted  the  important  duty  of  drawing  up  the  Articles  of  Impeachment. 
This  work  having  been  done  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  House,  Mr.  Bingham  was  elected 
chairman  of  the  managers  to  conduct  the  impeachment  of  the  President  before  the 
Senate. 

On  him  devolved  the  duty  of  making  the  closing  argument.  His  speech  on  this 
occasion  ranks  among  the  greatest  forensic  efforts  of  any  age.  He  began  the  delivery 
of  his  argument  on  Monday,  May  4th,  and  occupied  the  attention  of  the  Senate,  and  a 


PREFACE    TO  APPENDIX.  32! 

vast  auditory  on  the  floor  and  in  the  galleries,  during  three  successive  days.  At  the 
close  of  his  argument,  the  immense  audience  in  the  galleries,  wrought  up  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  enthusiasm,  gave  vent  to  such  an  unanimous  and  continued  outburst  of  applause 
as  has  never  before  been  heard  in  the  Capitol.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  who  could  not 
have  been  induced  deliberately  to  trespass  on  the  decorum  of  the  Senate,  by  whose 
courtesy  they  were  admitted  to  the  galleries,  overcome  by  their  feelings,  joined  in  the 
utterance  of  applause,  knowing  that  for  so  doing  the  Sergeant-at-arms  would  be  required 
to  expel  them  from  the  galleries.  The  history  of  the  country  records  no  similar  tribute 
to  the  oratorial  efforts  of  the  ablest  advocates  or  statesmen.  From  so  long  and  so  well- 
sustained  an  argument,  it  is  impossible  to  select  particular  passages  which  would  give 
an  adequate  idea  of  the  whole.  The  following  historical  argument  for  the  supremacy  of 
the  law  will  always  be  read  with  interest,  whether  as  an  extract,  or  in  its  original 
setting:  — 

"  Is  it  not  in  vain,  I  ask  you,  Senators,  that  the  people  have  thus  vindicated  by 
battle  the  supremacy  of  their  own  Constitution  and  laws,  if,  after  all,  their  President  is 
permitted  to  suspend  their  laws  and  dispense  with  the  execution  thereof  at  pleasure,  and 
defy  the  power  of  the  people  to  bring  him  to  trial  and  judgment  before  the  only  tribunal 
authorized  by  the  Constitution  to  try  him?  That  is  the  issue  that  is  presented  before 
the  Senate  for  decision  by  these  articles  of  impeachment.  By  such  acts  of  usurpation 
on  the  part  of  the  ruler  of  a  people,  I  need  not  say  to  the  Senate,  the  peace  of  nations 
is  broken,  as  it  is  only  by  obedience  to  law  that  the  peace  of  nations  is  maintained,  and 
their  existence  perpetuated.  Law  is  the  voice  of  God  and  the  harmony  of  the  world:  — 

"  '  It  doth  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong, 

Through  it  the  eternal  heavens  are  fresh  and  strong.' 

"  All  history  is  but  philosophy,  teaching  by  example.  God  is  in  history,  and  through  it 
teaches  to  men  and  nations  the  profoundest  lessons  which  they  learn.  It  does  not  sur 
prise  me,  Senators,  that  the  learned  counsel  for  the  accused  asked  the  Senate,  in  the 
consideration  of  this  question,  to  close  that  volume  of  instruction,  not  to  look  into  the 
past,  and  not  to  listen  to  its  voices.  Senators,  from  that  day  when  the  inscription  was 
written  upon  the  graves  of  the  heroes  of  Thermopylae,  '  Stranger,  go  tell  the  Lacede 
monians  that  we  lie  here  in  obedience  to  their  laws,'  to  this  hour,  no  profounder  lesson 
than  this  has  come  down  to  us:  that  through  obedience  to  law  comes  the  strength  of 
nations  and  the  safety  of  men. 

"  No  more  fatal  provision  ever  found  its  way  into  the  Constitutions  of  States  than 
that  contended  for  in  this  defense  which  recognizes  the  right  of  a  single  despot  or  of 
the  many  to  discriminate  in  the  administration  of  justice  between  the  ruler  and  the 
citizen,  between  the  strong  and  the  weak.  It  was  by  this  unjust  discrimination  that 
Aristides  was  banished  because  he  was  just.  It  was  by  this  unjust  discrimination  that 
.Socrates,  the  wonder  of  the  Pagan  world,  was  doomed  to  drink  the  hemlock  because  of 
his  transcendant  virtues.  It  was  in  honorable  protest  against  this  unjust  discriminatton 
that  the  great  Roman  Senator,  father  of  his  country,  declared  that  the  force  of  the  law 
consists  in  its  being  made  for  the  whole  community.  Senators,  it  is  the  pride  and 
boast  of  that  great  people  from  whom  we  are  descended,  as  it  is  the  pride  and  boast  of 
every  American,  that  the  law  is  the  supreme  power  of  the  State,  that  it  is  for  the  protection 
of  each,  by  the  combined  power  of  all.  By  the  Constitution  of  England  the  hereditary 
monarch  is  no  more  above  the  law  than  the  humblest  subject  \  and  by  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  the  President  is  no  more  above  the  law  than  the  poorest  and  most 


322  PREFACE    TO  APPENDIX. 

friendless  beggar  in  your  streets.  The  usurpations  of  Charles  I.  inflicted  untold  injuries 
upon  the  people  of  England,  and  finally  cost  the  usurper  his  life.  The  subsequent 
usurpations  of  James  II.,  and  I  only  refer  to  it  because  there  is  between  his  official 
conduct  and  that  of  this  accused  President,  the  most  remarkable  parallel  that  I  have  ever 
read  in  history,  filled  the  heart  and  brain  of  England  with  conviction  that  new 
securities  must  be  taken  to  restrain  the  prerogatives  asserted  by  the  crown,  if  they 
would  maintain  their  ancient  Constitution  and  perpetuate  their  liberties.  It  is  well 
said  by  Hallam  that  the  usurpations  of  James  swept  away  the  solemn  ordinances  of  the 
legislature.  Out  of  those  usurpations  came  the  great  revolution  of  1688,  which  resulted 
in  the  dethronement  and  banishment  of  James,  in  the  elevation  of  William  and  Mary, 
and  in  the  immortal  Declaration  of  Rights. 

"  I  ask  the  Senate  to  notice  that  these  charges  against  James  are  substantially  the 
charges  presented  against  this  accused  President,  and  confessed  here  of  record,  that  he 
has  suspended  the  laws,  and  dispensed  with  the  execution  of  laws,  and  in  order  to  do 
this  has  usurped  authority  as  the  executive  of  the  nation,  declaring  himself  entitled  under 
the  Constitution  to  suspend  the  laws  and  dispense  with  their  execution.  He  has  further, 
like  James,  attempted  to  control  the  appropriated  money  of  the  people  contrary  to  law. 
And  he  has  further,  like  James,  although  it  is  not  alleged  against  him  in  the  Articles  of 
Impeachment,  it  is  confessed  in  his  answer,  and  attempted  to  cause  the  question  of  his 
responsibility  to  the  people  to  be  tried,  not  in  the  King's  Bench,  but  in  the  Supreme 
Court,  when  that  question  is  alone  cognizable  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 
Surely,  Senators,  if  these  usurpations,  if  these  endeavors  on  the  part  of  James  thus  to 
subvert  the  liberties  of  the  people  of  England,  cost  him  his  crown  and  kingdom,  the 
like  offenses  committed  by  Andrew  Johnson  ought  to  cost  him  his  office,  and  to  subject 
him  to  that  perpetual  disability  pronounced  by  the  people  through  the  Constitution  upon 
him  for  his  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors. 

"  I  ask  you,  Senators,  how  long  men  would  deliberate  upon  the  question  whether  a 
private  citizen  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  one  of  your  tribunals  of  justice  for  a  criminal  vio 
lation  of  the  law,  should  be  permitted  to  interpose  a  plea  in  justification  of  his  criminal 
act,  that  his  only  purpose  was  to  interpret  the  Constitution  and  laws  for  himself,  that 
he  violated  the  law  in  the  exercise  of  his  prerogative  to  test  its  validity  hereafter  at 
such  a  day  as  might  suit  his  own  convenience  in  the  courts  of  justice.  Surely  it  is  as 
competent  for  the  private  citizen  to  interpose  such  justification  in  answer  to  crime  in 
one  of  your  tribunals  of  justice,  as  it  is  for  the  President  to  interpose  it,  and  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  Constitution  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  and  rests  neither  in  the 
private  citizen  judicial  power. 

"  Can  it  be  that  by  your  decree  you  are  at  last  to  make  this  discrimination  between 
the  ruler  of  the  people  and  the  private  citizen,  and  to  allow  him  to  interpose  his  assumed 
right  to  interpret  judicially  your  Constitution  and  laws?  Are  you  to  solemnly  proclaim 
by  your  decree :  — 

"  '  Plate  sin  with  gold, 

And  the  strong  lance  of  justice  heartless  breaks; 
Arm  it  in  rags  and  a  pigmy's  straw  doth  pierce  it?  ' 

"  I  put  away  the  possibility  that  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  equal  in  dignity  to 
any  tribunal  in  the  world,  is  capable  of  recording  any  such  decision  even  upon  the  peti 
tion  and  prayer  of  the  accused  and  guilty  President.  Can  it  be  that  by  reason  of  his 
great  office  the  President  is  to  be  protected  in  his  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors,  viola- 


PREFACE    TO  APPENDIX. 


323 


tive  alike  of  his  oath,  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  express  letter  of  your  written  law, 
enacted  by  the  legislative  department  of  the  government? 

"  I  ask  you,  Senators,  to  consider  that  I  speak  before  you  this  day  in  behalf  of  the 
violated  law  of  a  free  people,  who  commission  me.  I  ask  you  to  remember  this,  that  I 
speak  this  day  under  the  obligations  of  this  my  oath.  I  ask  you  to  consider  that  I  am 
not  insensible  to  the  significance  of  the  words  of  which  mention  was  made  by  the 
learned  counsel  from  New  York;  justice,  duty,  law,  oath.  I  ask  you  to  remember 
that  the  great  principles  of  constitutional  liberty  for  which  I  speak  this  day,  have  been 
taught  to  men  and  nations  by  all  the  trials  and  triumphs,  by  all  the  agonies  and  martyr 
doms  of  the  past;  that  they  are  the  wisdom  of  the  centuries  uttered  by  the  elect  of  the 
human  race. 

"  I  ask  you  to  consider  that  we  stand  this  day  pleading  for  the  violated  majesty  of 
the  law,  by  the  graves  of  half  a  million  of  martyred  hero-patriots  who  sacrificed  them 
selves  for  their  country,  the  Constitution,  and  the  laws,  and  who  by  their  sublime  exam 
ples  have  taught  us  that  all  must  obey  the  law;  that  none  are  above  the  law;  that  no 
man  lives  for  himself  alone,  but  each  for  all,  that  some  must  die  that  the  State  may 
live;  that  the  citizen  is  but  for  to-day,  that  the  commonwealth  is  for  all  time,  and  that 
position,  however  high,  patronage  however  powerful,  cannot  be  permitted  to  shelter 
crime  to  the  peril  of  the  Republic." 


ARGUMENT   OF  JOHN   A.  BINGHAM, 

SPECIAL  JUDGE  ADVOCATE, 

IN    REPLY  TO   THE    SEVERAL    ARGUMENTS    IN    DEFENCE    OF    MARY 

E.   SURRATT  AND   OTHERS,   CHARGED   WITH    CONSPIRACY  AND 

THE   MURDER   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN,   LATE   PRESIDENT 

OF  THE   UNITED   STATES,    ETC. 


MAY  IT  PLEASE  THE  COURT  :  The  conspiracy  here  charged  and  specified,  and  the 
acts  alleged  to  have  been  committed  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  with  the  intent  laid, 
constitute  a  crime  the  atrocity  of  which  has  sent  a  shudder  through  the  civilized  world. 
All  that  was  agreed  upon  and  attempted  by  the  alleged  inciters  and  instigators  of  this 
crime  constitutes  a  combination  of  atrocities  with  scarcely  a  parallel  in  the  annals  of  the 
human  race.  Whether  the  prisoners  at  your  bar  are  guilty  of  the  conspiracy  and  the 
acts  alleged  to  have  been  done  in  pursuance  thereof,  as  set  forth  in  the  charge  and  speci 
fication,  is  a  question  the  determination  of  which  rests  solely  with  this  honorable  court, 
and  in  passing  upon  which  this  court  are  the  sole  judges  of  the  law  and  the  fact. 

In  presenting  my  views  upon  the  questions  of  law  raised  by  the  several  counsel  for 
the  defence,  and  also  on  the  testimony  adduced  for  and  against  the  accused,  I  desire  to 
be  just  to  them,  just  to  you,  just  to  my  country,  and  just  to  my  own  convictions.  The 
issue  joined  involves  the  highest  interests  of  the  accused,  and,  in  my  judgment,  the 
highest  interests  of  the  whole  people  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  moment  to  all  the  people  of  this  country  that  the  prisoners  at 
your  bar  be  lawfully  tried  and  lawfully  convicted  or  acquitted.  A  wrongful  and  illegal 
conviction  or  a  wrongful  and  illegal  acquittal  upon  this  dread  issue  would  impair  some 
what  the  security  of  every  man's  life,  and  shake  the  stability  of  the  republic. 

The  crime  charged  and  specified  upon  your  record  is  not  simply  the  crime  of  murder 
ing  a  human  being,  but  it  is  the  crime  of  killing  and  murdering  on  the  I4th  day  of  April, 
A.  D.  1865?  within  the  military  department  of  Washington  and  the  intrenched  lines 
thereof,  Abraham  Lincoln,  then  President  of  the  United  States,  and  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  army  and  navy  thereof;  and  then  and  there  assaulting,  with  intent  to  kill  and 
murder,  William  H.  Seward,  then  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States;  and  then 
and  there  lying  in  wait  to  kill  and  murder  Andrew  Johnson,  then  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States,  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then  lieutenant-general  and  in  command  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States,  in  pursuance  of  a  treasonable  conspiracy  entered  into  by 
the  accused  with  one  John  Wilkes  Booth,  and  John  H.  Surratt,  upon  the  instigation  of 
Jefferson  Davis,  Jacob  Thompson,  and  George  N.  Sanders  and  others,  with  intent 
thereby  to  aid  the  existing  rebellion  and  subvert  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United 
States. 

325 


326  APPENDIX. 

The  rebellion,  in  aid  of  which  this  conspiracy  was  formed  and  this  great  public  crime 
committed,  was  prosecuted  for  the  vindication  of  no  right,  for  the  redress  of  no  wrong, 
but  was  itself  simply  a  criminal  conspiracy  and  gigantic  assassination.  In  resisting  and 
crushing  this  rebellion  the  American  people  take  no  step  backward  and  cast  no  reproach 
upon  their  past  history.  That  people  now,  as  ever,  proclaim  the  self-evident  truth  that 
whenever  government  becomes  subversive  of  the  ends  of  its  creation,  it  is  the  right  and 
duty  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it;  but  during  these  four  years  of  conflict  they  have 
as  clearly  proclaimed,  as  was  their  right  and  duty,  both  by  law  and  by  arms,  that  the 
government  of  their  own  choice,  humanely  and  wisely  administered,  oppressive  of  none 
and  just  to  all,  shall  not  be  overthrown  by  privy  conspiracy  or  armed  rebellion. 

What  wrong  had  this  government  or  any  of  its  duly  constituted  agents  done  to  any 
of  the  guilty  actors  in  this  atrocious  rebellion?  They  themselves  being  witnesses,  the 
government  which  they  assailed  had  done  no  act,  and  attempted  no  act,  injurious  to 
them,  or  in  any  sense  violative  of  their  rights  as  citizens  and  men;  and  yet  for  four 
years,  without  cause  of  complaint  or  colorable  excuse,  the  inciters  and  instigators  of  the 
conspiracy  charged  upon  your  record  have,  by  armed  rebellion,  resisted  the  lawful  author 
ity  of  the  government,  and  attempted  by  force  of  arms  to  blot  the  republic  from  the 
map  of  nations.  Now  that  their  battalions  of  treason  are  broken  and  flying  before  the 
victorious  legions  of  the  republic,  the  chief  traitors  in  this  great  crime  against  your 
government  secretly  conspire  with  their  hired  confederates  to  achieve  by  assassination, 
if  possible,  what  they  have  in  vain  attempted  by  wager  of  battle  —  the  overthrow  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States  and  the  subversion  of  its  Constitution  and  laws.  It  is 
for  this  secret  conspiracy  in  the  interest  of  the  rebellion,  formed  at  the  instigation  of  the 
chiefs  in  that  rebellion,  and  in  pursuance  of  which  the  acts  charged  and  specified  are 
alleged  to  have  been  done  and  with  the  intent  laid,  that  the  accused  are  upon  trial. 

The  government,  in  preferring  this  charge,  does  not  indict  the  whole  people  of  any 
State  or  section,  but  only  the  alleged  parties  to  this  unnatural  and  atrocious  conspiracy 
and  crime.  The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  army,  and  by  virtue  of  the  power  vested  in  him  by  the  Constitu 
tion  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  has  constituted  you  a  military  court,  to  hear  and 
determine  the  issue  joined  against  the  accused,  and  has  constituted  you  a  court  for  no 
other  purpose  whatever.  To  this  charge  and  specification  the  defendants  have  pleaded, 
first,  that  this  court  has  no  jurisdiction  in  the  premises;  and,  second,  not  guilty.  As 
the  court  has  already  overruled  the  plea  to  the  jurisdiction,  it  would  be  passed  over  in 
silence  by  me  but  for  the  fact  that  a  grave  and  elaborate  argument  has  been  made  by 
counsel  for  the  accused  not  only  to  show  the  want  of  jurisdiction,  but  to  arraign  the 
President  of  the  United  States  before  the  country  and  the  world  as  a  usurper  of  power 
over  the  lives  and  the  liberties  of  the  prisoners.  Denying  the  authority  of  the  President 
to  constitute  this  commission  is  an  averment  that  this  tribunal  is  not  a  court  of  justice, 
has  no  legal  existence,  and  therefore  no  power  to  hear  and  determine  the  issue  joined. 
The  learned  counsel  for  the  accused,  when  they  make  this  averment  by  way  of  argument, 
owe  it  to  themselves  and  to  their  country  to  show  how  the  President  could  otherwise 
lawfully  and  efficiently  discharge  the  duty  enjoined  upon  him  by  his  oath  to  protect, 
preserve,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  to  take  care  that  the 
laws  be  faithfully  executed. 

An  existing  rebellion  is  alleged  and  not  denied.  It  is  charged  that  in  aid  of  this 
existing  rebellion  a  conspiracy  was  entered  into  by  the  accused,  incited  and  instigated 
thereto  by  the  chiefs  of  this  rebellion,  to  kill  and  murder  the  executive  officers  of  the 


APPENDIX.  327 

government  and  the  commander  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  and  that  this  con 
spiracy  was  partly  executed  by  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  by  a  murderous 
assault  upon  the  Secretary  of  State;  and  counsel  reply,  by  elaborate  argument,  that 
although  the  facts  be  as  charged,  though  the  conspirators  be  numerous  and  at  large,  able 
and  eager  to  complete  the  horrid  work  of  assassination  already  begun  within  your  mili 
tary  encampment,  yet  the  successor  of  your  murdered  President  is  a  usurper  if  he  attempts 
by  military  force  and  martial  law,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  to  prevent  the  consummation 
of  this  traitorous  conspiracy  in  aid  of  this  treasonable  rebellion.  The  civil  courts,  say 
the  counsel,  are  open  in  the  District.  I  answer,  they  are  closed  throughout  half  the 
republic,  and  were  only  open  in  this  District  on  the  day  of  this  confederation  and  con 
spiracy,  on  the  day  of  the  traitorous  assassination  of  your  President,  and  are  only  open 
at  this  hour  by  force  of  the  bayonet.  Does  any  man  suppose  that  if  the  military  forces 
which  garrison  the  intrenchments  of  your  capital,  fifty  thousand  strong,  were  all  with 
drawn,  the  rebel  bands  who  this  day  infest  the  mountain  passes  in  your  vicinity  would 
allow  this  court,  or  any  court,  to  remain  open  in  this  District  for  the  trial  of  these  their 
confederates,  or  would  permit  your  executive  officers  to  discharge  the  trust  committed  to 
them,  for  twenty-four  hours? 

At  the  time  this  conspiracy  was  entered  into,  and  when  this  court  was  convened  and 
entered  upon  this  trial,  the  country  was  in  a  state  of  civil  war.  An  army  of  insurrec 
tionists  have,  since  this  trial  begun,  shed  the  blood  of  Union  soldiers  in  battle.  The 
conspirator,  by  whose  hand  his  co-conspirators,  whether  present  or  absent,  jointly  mur 
dered  the  President  on  the  I4th  of  last  April,  could  not  be  and  was  not  arrested  upon 
civil  process,  but  was  pursued  by  the  military  power  of  the  government,  captured,  and 
slain.  Was  this  an  act  of  usurpation?  —  a  violation  of  the  right  guaranteed  to  that 
fleeing  assassin  by  the  very  Constitution  against  which  and  for  the  subversion  of  which 
he  had  conspired  and  murdered  the  President?  Who  in  all  this  land  is  bold  enough  or 
base  enough  to  assert  it? 

I  would  be  glad  to  know  by  what  law  the  President,  by  a  military  force,  acting  only 
upon  his  military  orders,  is  justified  in  pursuing,  arresting,  and  killing  one  of  these 
conspirators,  and  is  condemned  for  arresting  in  like  manner,  and  by  his  order  subjecting 
to  trial,  according  to  the  laws  of  war,  any  or  all  of  the  other  parties  to  this  same  dam 
nable  conspiracy  and  crime,  by  a  military  tribunal  of  justice  —  a  tribunal,  I  may  be  par 
doned  for  saying,  whose  integrity  and  impartiality  are  above  suspicion,  and  pass  unchal 
lenged  even  by  the  accused  themselves. 

The  argument  against  the  jurisdiction  of  this  court  rests  upon  the  assumption  that 
even  in  time  of  insurrection  and  civil  war  no  crimes  are  cognizable  and  punishable  by 
military  commission  or  court-martial,  save  crimes  committed  in  the  military  or  naval 
service  of  the  United  States,  or  in  the  militia  of  the  several  states  when  called  into  the 
actual  service  of  the  United  States.  But  that  is  not  all  the  argument :  it  affirms  that 
under  this  plea  to  the  jurisdiction  the  accused  have  the  right  to  demand  that  this  court 
shall  decide  that  it  is  not  a  judicial  tribunal  and  has  no  legal  existence. 

This  is  a  most  extraordinary  proposition  —  that  the  President,  under  the  Constitution 
and  laws  of  the  United  States,  was  not  only  not  authorized,  but  absolutely  forbidden,  to 
constitute  this  court  for  the  trial  of  the  accused,  and,  therefore,  the  act  of  the  President 
is  void,  and  the  gentlemen  who  compose  the  tribunal  without  judicial  authority  or  power, 
and  are  not  in  fact  or  in  law  a  court. 

That  I  do  not  misstate  what  is  claimed  and  attempted  to  be  established  on  behalf  of 
the  accused,  I  ask  the  attention  of  the  court  to  the  following  as  the  gentleman's  (Mr. 
Johnson's)  propositions:  — 


328 


APPENDIX. 


That  Congress  has  not  authorized,  and,  under  the  Constitution,  cannot  authorize  the 
appointment  of  this  commission. 

That  this  commission  has,  "  as  a  court,  no  legal  existence  or  authority,"  because  the 
President,  who  alone  appointed  the  commission,  has  no  such  power. 

That  his  act  "  is  a  mere  nullity  —  the  usurpation  of  a  power  not  vested  in  the  Execu 
tive,  and  conferring  no  authority  upon  you." 

We  have  had  no  common  exhibition  of  law  learning  in  this  defence,  prepared  by  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States;  but  with  all  his  experience,  and  all  his  learning  and 
acknowledged  ability,  he  has  failed,  utterly  failed,  to  show  how  a  tribunal  constituted 
and  sworn,  as  this  has  been,  to  duly  try  and  determine  the  charge  and  specification 
against  the  accused,  and  by  its  commission  not  authorized  to  hear  or  determine  any 
other  issues  whatever,  can  rightfully  entertain,  or  can  by  any  possibility  pass  upon,  the 
proposition  presented  by  this  argument  of  the  gentleman  for  its  consideration. 

The  members  of  this  court  are  officers  in  the  army  of  the  United  States,  and  by 
order  of  the  President,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  are  required  to  discharge  this  duty,  and 
are  authorized  in  this  capacity  to  discharge  no  other  duty,  to  exercise  no  other  judicial 
power.  Of  course,  if  the  commission  of  the  President  constitutes  this  a  court  for  the 
trial  of  this  case  only,  as  such  court  it  is  competent  to  decide  all  questions  of  law  and 
fact  arising  in  the  trial  of  the  case.  But  this  court  has  no  power,  as  a  court,  to  declare 
the  authority  by  which  it  was  constituted  null  and  void,  and  the  act  of  the  President  a 
mere  nullity,  a  usurpation.  Has  it  been  shown  by  the  learned  gentleman,  who  demands 
that  this  court  shall  so  decide,  that  officers  of  the  army  may  lawfully  and  constitutionally 
question  in  this  manner  the  orders  of  their  Commander-in-Chief,  disobey,  set  them  aside, 
and  declare  them  a  nullity  and  a  usurpation?  Even  if  it  be  conceded  that  the  officers 
thus  detailed  by  order  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  may  question  and  utterly  disregard 
his  order  and  set  aside  his  authority,  is  it  possible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  any  body 
of  men,  constituted  and  qualified  as  a  tribunal  of  justice,  can  sit  in  judgment  upon  the 
proposition  that  they  are  not  a  court  for  any  purpose,  and  finally  decide  judicially,  as  a 
court,  that  the  gdvernment  which  appointed  them  was  without  authority?  Why  not 
crown  the  absurdity  of  this  proposition  by  asking  the  several  members  of  this  court  to 
determine  that  they  are  not  men  —  living,  intelligent,  responsible  men?  This  would  be 
no  more  irrational  than  the  question  upon  which  they  are  asked  to  pass.  How  can  any 
sensible  man  entertain  it  ?  Before  he  begins  to  reason  upon  the  proposition  he  must 
take  for  granted,  and  therefore  decide  in  advance,  the  very  question  in  dispute,  to  wit, 
his  actual  existence. 

So  with  the  question  presented  in  this  remarkable  argument  for  the  defence:  before 
this  court  can  enter  upon  the  inquiry  of  the  want  of  authority  in  the  President  to  con- 
sfitute  them  a  court,  they  must  take  for  granted  and  decide  the  very  point  in  issue,  that 
the  President  had  the  authority,  and  that  they  are  in  law  and  in  fact  a  judicial  tribunal; 
and  having  assumed  this,  they  are  gravely  asked,  as  such  judicial  tribunal,  to  finally  and 
solemnly  decide  and  declare  that  they  are  not  in  fact  or  in  law  a  judicial  tribunal,  but  a 
mere  nullity  and  nonentity.  A  most  lame  and  impotent  conclusion  ! 

As  the  learned  counsel  seems  to  have  great  reverence  for  judicial  authority,  and 
requires  precedent  for  every  opinion,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  saying  that  the  objection 
which  I  urge  against  the  possibility  of  any  judicial  tribunal,  after  being  officially  quali 
fied  as  such,  entertaining,  much  less  judicially  deciding,  the  proposition  that  it  has  no 
legal  existence  as  a  court,  and  that  the  appointment  was  a  usurpation  and  without 
authority  of  law,  has  been  solemnly  ruled  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 


APPENDIX.  329 

That  court  say:  "The  acceptance  of  the  judicial  office  is  a  recognition  of  the 
authority  from  which  it  is  derived.  If  a  court  should  enter  upon  the  inquiry  (whether 
the  authority  of  the  government  which  established  it  existed),  and  should  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  government  under  which  it  acted  had  been  put  aside,  it  would  cease 
to  be  a  court  and  be  incapable  of  pronouncing  a  judicial  decision  upon  the  question  it 
undertook  to  try.  If  it  decides  at  all  as  a  court,  it  necessarily  affirms  the  existence  and 
authority  of  the  government  under  which  it  is  exercising  judicial  power." — (Luther  vs. 
Borden,  7  Howard,  40.) 

That  is  the  very  question  raised  by  the  learned  gentleman  in  his  argument  —  that 
there  was  no  authority  in  the  President,  by  whose  act  alone  this  tribunal  was  consti 
tuted,  to  vest  it  with  judicial  power  to  try  this  issue;  and  by  the  order  upon  your  record, 
as  has  already  been  shown,  if  you  have  no  power  to  try  this  issue  for  want  of  authority 
in  the  Commander-in-Chief  to  constitute  you  a  court,  you  are  no  court,  and  have  no 
power  to  try  any  issue,  because  his  order  limits  you  to  this  issue,  and  this  alone. 

It  requires  no  very  profound  legal  attainments  to  apply  the  ruling  of  the  highest 
judicial  tribunal  of  this  country,  just  cited,  to  the  point  raised,  not  by  the  pleadings,  but 
by  the  argument.  This  court  exists  as  a  judicial  tribunal  by  authority  only  of  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States;  the  acceptance  of  the  office  is  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
validity  of  the  authority  conferring  it,  and  if  the  President  had  no  authority  to  order, 
direct,  and  constitute  this  court  to  try  the  accused,  and,  as  is  claimed,  did,  in  so  consti 
tuting  it,  perform  an  unconstitutional  and  illegal  act,  it  necessarily  results  that  the  order 
of  the  President  is  void  and  of  no  effect;  that  the  order  did  not  and  could  not  constitute 
this  a  tribunal  of  justice,  and  therefore  its  members  are  incapable  of  pronouncing  a  judi 
cial  decision  upon  the  question  presented. 

There  is  a  marked  distinction  between  the  question  here  presented  and  that  raised 
by  a  plea  to  the  jurisdiction  of  a  tribunal  whose  existence  as  a  court  is  neither  questioned 
nor  denied.  Here  it  is  argued,  through  many  pages,  by  a  learned  Senator,  and  a  dis 
tinguished  lawyer,  that  the  order  of  the  President,  by  whose  authority  alone  this  court 
is  constituted  a  tribunal  of  military  justice,  is  unlawful;  if  unlawful  it  is  void  and  of  no 
effect,  and  has  created  no  court;  therefore  this  body,  not  being  a  court,  can  have  no 
more  power  as  a  court  to  decide  any  question  whatever  than  have  its  individual  members 
power  to  decide  that  they  as  men  do  not  in  fact  exist. 

It  is  a  maxim  of  the  common  law  —  the  perfection  of  human  reason  —  that  what  is 
impossible  the  law  requires  of  no  man. 

How  can  it  be  possible  that  a  judicial  tribunal  can  decide  the  question  that  it  does 
not  exist,  any  more  than  that  a  rational  man  can  decide  that  he  does  not  exist? 

The  absurdity  of  the  proposition  so  elaborately  urged  upon  the  consideration  of  this 
court  cannot  be  saved  from  the  ridicule  and  contempt  of  sensible  men  by  the  pretence 
that  the  court  is  not  asked  judicially  to  decide  that  it  is  not  a  court,  but  only  that  it  has 
no  jurisdiction;  for  it  is  a  fact  not  to  be  denied  that  the  whole  argument  for  the  defence 
on  this  point  is  that  the  President  had  not  the  lawful  authority  to  issue  the  order  by 
which  alone  this  court  is  constituted,  and  that  the  order  for  its  creation  is  null  and  void. 

Gentlemen  might  as  well  ask  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  upon  a  plea  to 
the  jurisdiction  to  decide,  as  a  court,  that  the  President  had  no  lawful  authority  to  nom 
inate  the  judges  thereof  severally  to  the  Senate,  and  that  the  Senate  had  no  lawful 
authority  to  advise  and  consent  to  their  appointment,  as  to  ask  this  court  to  decide,  as  a 
court,  that  the  order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  constituting  it  a  tribunal  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  this  trial,  was  not  only  without  authority  of  law,  but  against  and  in 


330  APPENDIX. 

violation  of  law.  If  this  court  is  not  a  lawful  tribunal,  it  has  no  existence,  and  can  no 
more  speak  as  a  court  than  the  dead,  much  less  pronounce  the  judgment  required  at  his 
hands  —  that  it  is  not  a  court,  and  that  the  President  of  the  United  States,  in  constituting 
it  such  to  try  the  question  upon  the  charge  and  specification  preferred,  has  transcended 
his  authority,  and  violated  his  oath  of  office. 

Before  passing  from  the  consideration  of  the  proposition  of  the  learned  senator,  that 
this  is  not  a  court,  it  is  fit  that  I  should  notice  that  another  of  the  counsel  for  the 
accused  (Mr.  Ewing)  has  also  advanced  the  same  opinion,  certainly  with  more  directness 
and  candor,  and  without  any  qualification.  His  statement  is,  "You,"  gentlemen,  "are 
no  court  under  the  Constitution."  This  remark  of  the  gentleman  cannot  fail  to  excite 
surprise,  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  gentleman,  not  many  months  since,  was  a 
general  in  the  service  of  the  country,  and  as  such  in  his  department  in  the  West  pro 
claimed  and  enforced  martial  law  by  the  constitution  of  military  tribunals  for  the  trial 
of  citizens  not  in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  but  who  were  guilty  of  military  offences,  for 
which  he  deemed  them  justly  punishable  before  military  courts,  and  accordingly  he 
punished  them.  Is  the  gentleman  quite  sure,  when  that  account  comes  to  be  rendered 
for  these  alleged  unconstitutional  assumptions  of  power,  that  he  will  not  have  to  answer 
for  more  of  these  alleged  violations  of  the  rights  of  citizens  by  illegal  arrests,  convic 
tions,  and  executions,  than  any  of  the  members  of  this  court?  In  support  of  his  opin 
ion  that  this  is  no  court,  the  gentleman  cites  the  3d  article  of  the  Constitution,  which 
provides  "that  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be  vested  in  one  supreme 
court,  and  such  inferior  courts  as  Congress  may  establish,"  the  judges  whereof  "shall 
hold  their  offices  during  good  behavior." 

It  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  say  to  the  gentleman,  that  the  power  of  this  government 
to  try  and  punish  military  offences  by  military  tribunals  is  no  part  of  the  "judicial 
power  of  the  United  States,"  under  the  3d  article  of  the  Constitution,  but  a  power 
conferred  by  the  8th  section  of  the  1st  article,  and  so  it  has  been  ruled  by  the  Supreme 
Court  in  Dyres  vs.  Hoover,  20  Howard,  78.  If  this  power  is  so  conferred  by  the  8th 
section,  a  military  court  authorized  by  Congress,  and  constituted  as  this  has  been,  to  try 
all  persons  for  military  crimes  in  time  of  war,  though  not  exercising  "  the  judicial 
power"  provided  for  in  the  3d  article,  is  nevertheless  a  court  as  constitutional  as  the 
Supreme  Court  itself.  The  gentleman  admits  this  to  the  extent  of  the  trial  by  courts- 
martial  of  persons  in  the  military  or  naval  service,  and  by  admitting  it  he  gives  up  the 
point.  There  is  no  express  grant  for  any  such  tribunal,  and  the  power  to  establish  such 
a  court,  therefore,  is  implied  from  the  provisions  of  the  8th  section,  1st  article,  that 
"  Congress  shall  have  power  to  provide  and  maintain  a  navy,"  and  also  "  to  make  rules 
for  the  government  of  the  land  and  naval  forces."  From  these  grants  the  Supreme 
Court  infer  the  power  to  establish  courts-martial,  and  from  the  grants  in  the  same  8th 
section,  as  I  shall  notice  hereafter,  that  "  Congress  shall  have  power  to  declare  war," 
and  "  to  pass  all  laws  necessary  and  proper  to  carry  this  and  all  other  powers  into  effect," 
it  is  necessarily  implied  that  in  time  of  war  Congress  may  authorize  military  commissions, 
to  try  all  crimes  committed  in  aid  of  the  public  enemy,  as  such  tribunals  are  necessary  to 
give  effect  to  the  power  to  make  war  and  suppress  insurrection. 

Inasmuch  as  the  gentleman  (General  Ewing),  for  whom,  personally,  I  have  a  high 
regard  as  the  military  commander  of  a  Western  department,  made  a  liberal  exercise, 
under  the  order  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army,  of  this  power  to  arrest  and 
try  military  offenders  not  in  the  land  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States,  and  inflicted 
upon  them,  as  I  am  informed,  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law,  by  virtue  of  his  military 


APPENDIX.  33! 

jurisdiction,  I  wish  to  know  whether  he  proposes,  by  his  proclamation  of  the  personal 
responsibility  awaiting  all  such  usurpations  of  judicial  authority,  that  he  himself  shall  be 
subjected  to  the  same  stern  judgment  which  he  invokes  against  others  —  that,  in  short, 
he  shall  be  drawn  and  quartered  for  inflicting  the  extreme  penalties  of  the  law  upon 
citizens  of  the  United  States  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  his  country? 
I  trust  that  his  error  of  judgment  in  pronouncing  this  military  jurisdiction  a  usurpation 
and  violation  of  the  Constitution  may  not  rise  up  in  judgment  to  condemn  him,  and  that 
he  may  never  be  subjected  to  pains  and  penalties  for  having  done  his  duty  heretofore  in 
exercising  this  rightful  authority,  and  in  bringing  to  judgment  those  who  conspired 
against  the  lives  and  liberties  of  the  people. 

Here  I  might  leave  this  question,  committing  it  to  the  charitable  speeches  of  men, 
but  for  the  fact  that  the  learned  counsel  has  been  more  careful  in  his  extraordinary  argu 
ment  to  denounce  the  President  as  a  usurper  than  to  show  how  the  court  could  possibly 
decide  that  it  has  no  judicial  existence,  and  yet  that  it  has  judicial  existence. 

A  representative  of  the  people  and  of  the  rights  of  the  people  before  this  court,  by 
the  appointment  of  the  President,  and  which  appointment  was  neither  sought  by  me 
nor  desired,  I  cannot  allow  all  that  has  been  here  said  by  way  of  denunciation  of  the 
murdered  President  and  his  successor  to  pass  unnoticed.  This  has  been  made  the  occa 
sion  by  the  learned  counsel,  Mr.  Johnson,  to  volunteer,  not  to  defend  the  accused, 
Mary  E.  Surratt,  not  to  make  a  judicial  argument  in  her  behalf,  but  to  make  a  political 
harangue,  a  partisan  speech  against  his  government  and  country,  and  thereby  swell  the 
cry  of  the  armed  legions  of  sedition  and  rebellion  that  but  yesterday  shook  the  heavens 
with  their  infernal  enginery  of  treason,  and  filled  the  habitations  of  the  people  with 
death.  As  the  law  forbids  a  senator  of  the  United  States  to  receive  compensation  or 
fee  for  defending,  in  cases  before  civil  or  military  commissions,  the  gentleman  volunteers 
to  make  a  speech  before  this  court,  in  which  he  denounces  the  action  of  the  Executive 
Department  in  proclaiming  and  executing  martial  law  against  rebels  in  arms,  their  aiders 
and  abettors,  as  a  usurpation  and  a  tyranny.  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  reply  to  this  denun 
ciation,  not  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  thereby  any  question  for  the  decision  of  this 
court,  for  I  have  shown  that  the  argument  of  the  gentleman  presents  no  question  for  its 
decision  as  a  court,  but  to  repel,  as  far  as  I  may  be  able,  the  unjust  aspersion  attempted 
to  be  cast  upon  the  memory  of  our  dead  President,  and  upon  the  official  conduct  of  his 
successor. 

I  propose  now  to  answer  fully  all  that  the  gentleman  (Mr.  Johnson)  has  said  of  the 
want  of  jurisdiction  in  this  court,  and  of  the  alleged  usurpation  and  tyranny  of  the 
Executive,  that  the  enlightened  public  opinion  to  which  he  appeals  may  decide  whether 
all  this  denunciation  is  just  —  whether  indeed  conspiring  against  the  whole  people,  and 
confederation  and  agreement,  in  aid  of  insurrection  to  murder  all  the  executive  officers 
of  the  government,  cannot  be  checked  or  arrested  by  the  Executive  power.  Let  the 
people  decide  this  question;  and  in  doing  so,  let  them  pass  upon  the  action  of  the 
senator  as  well  as  upon  the  action  of  those  whom  he  so  arrogantly  arraigns.  His  plea 
in  behalf  of  an  expiring  and  shattered  rebellion  is  a  fit  subject  for  public  consideration 
and  for  public  condemnation. 

Let  that  people  also  note  that,  while  the  learned  gentleman  (Mr.  Johnson),  as  a 
volunteer,  without  pay,  thus  condemns  as  a  usurpation  the  means  employed  so  effectually 
to  suppress  this  gigantic  insurrection,  the  New  York  Afovs,  whose  proprietor,  Benjamin 
Wood,  is  shown  by  the  testimony  upon  your  record  to  have  received  from  the  agents  of 
the  rebellion  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  rushes  into  the  lists  to  champion  the  cause  of 


332  APPENDIX. 

the  rebellion,  its  aiders  and  abettors,  by  following  to  the  letter  his  colleague  (Mr. 
Johnson),  and  with  greater  plainness  of  speech,  and  a  fervor  intensified,  doubtless,  by 
the  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  received,  and  the  hope  of  more,  denounces  the  court  as 
a  usurpation  and  threatens  the  members  with  the  consequences  ! 

The  argument  of  the  gentleman,  to  which  the  court  has  listened  so  patiently  and  so 
long,  is  but  an  attempt  to  show  that  it  is  unconstitutional  for  the  government  of  the 
United  States  to  arrest  upon  military  order  and  try  before  military  tribunals  and  punish 
upon  conviction,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  war  and  the  usages  of  nations,  all  crim 
inal  offenders  acting  in  aid  of  the  existing  rebellion.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  the  speech 
in  its  tone  and  temper  is  the  same  as  that  which  the  country  has  heard  for  the  last  four 
years  uttered  by  the  armed  rebels  themselves  and  by  their  apologists,  averring  that  it  was 
unconstitutional  for  the  government  of  the  United  States  to  defend  by  arms  its  own  right 
ful  authority  and  the  supremacy  of  its  laws. 

It  is  as  clearly  the  right  of  the  republic  to  live  and  to  defend  its  life  until  it  forfeits 
that  right  by  crime,  as  it  is  the  right  of  the  individual  to  live  so  long  as  God  gives  him 
life,  unless  he  forfeits  that  right  by  crime.  I  make  no  argument  to  support  this  proposi 
tion.  Who  is  there  here  or  elsewhere  to  cast  the  reproach  upon  my  country  that  for  her 
crimes  she  must  die  ?  Youngest  born  of  the  nations  !  is  she  not  immortal  by  all  the 
dread  memories  of  the  past  —  by  that  sublime  and  voluntary  sacrifice  of  the  present,  in 
which  the  bravest  and  noblest  of  her  sons  have  laid  down  their  lives  that  she  might  live, 
giving  their  serene  brows  to  the  dust  of  the  grave,  and  lifting  their  hands  for  the  last 
time  amidst  the  consuming  fires  of  battle?  I  assume,  for  the  purposes  of  this  argument, 
that  self-defence  is  as  clearly  the  right  of  nations  as  it  is  the  acknowledged  right  of  men, 
and  that  the  American  people  may  do  in  the  defence  and  maintenance  of  their  own 
rightful  authority  against  organized  armed  rebels,  their  aiders  and  abettors,  whatever 
free  and  independent  nations  anywhere  upon  this  globe,  in  time  of  war,  may  of  right  do. 

All  this  is  substantially  denied  by  the  gentleman  in  the  remarkable  argument  which 
he  has  here  made.  There  is  nothing  further  from  my  purpose  than  to  do  injustice  to  the 
learned  gentleman  or  to  his  elaborate  and  ingenious  argument.  To  justify  what  I  have 
already  said,  I  may  be  permitted  here  to  remind  the  court  that  nothing  is  said  by  the 
counsel  touching  the  conduct  of  the  accused,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  as  shown  by  the  testi 
mony;  that  he  makes  confession  at  the  end  of  his  arraignment  of  the  government  and 
country,  that  he  has  not  made  such  argument,  and  that  he  leaves  it  to  be  made  by  her 
other  counsel.  He  does  take  care,  however,  to  arraign  the  country  and  the  government 
for  conducting  a  trial  with  closed  doors  and  before  a  secret  tribunal,  and  compares  the 
proceedings  of  this  court  to  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  using  the  strongest  words  at  his 
command  to  intensify  the  horror  which  he  supposes  his  announcement  will  excite  through 
out  the  civilized  world. 

Was  this  dealing  fairly  by  this  government  ?  Was  there  anything  in  the  conduct  of 
the  proceedings  here  that  justified  any  such  remark?  Has  this  been  a  secret  trial  ?  Has 
it  not  been  conducted  in  open  day  in  the  presence  of  the  accused,  and  in  the  presence 
of  seven  gentlemen  learned  in  the  law,  who  appeared  from  day  to  day  as  their  counsel  ? 
Were  they  not  informed  of  the  accusation  against  them?  Wrere  they  deprived  of  the 
right  of  challenge?  Was  it  not  secured  to  them  by  law,  and  were  they  not  asked  to 
exercise  it?  Has  any  part  of  the  evidence  been  suppressed?  Have  not  all  the  pro 
ceedings  been  published  to  the  world?  What,  then,  was  done,  or  intended  to  be  done, 
by  the  government,  which  justifies  this  clamor  about  a  Spanish  Inquisition? 

That  a  people  assailed  by  organized  treason  over  an  extent  of  territory  half  as  large 


APPENDIX.  333 

as  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  assailed  in  their  very  capital  by  secret  assassins  banded 
together  and  hired  to  do  the  work  of  murder  by  the  instigation  of  these  conspirators, 
may  not  be  permitted  to  make  inquiry,  even  with  closed  doors,  touching  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  organization,  ought  not  to  be  asserted  by  any  gentleman  who  makes  the 
least  pretensions  to  any  knowledge  of  the  law,  either  common,  civil,  or  military.  Who 
does  not  know  that  at  the  common  law  all  inquisition  touching  crimes  and  misdemeanors, 
preparatory  to  indictment  by  the  grand  inquest  of  the  state,  is  made  with  closed  doors? 

In  this  trial  no  parties  accused,  nor  their  counsel,  nor  the  reporters  of  this  court, 
were  at  any  time  excluded  from  its  deliberations  when  any  testimony  was  being  taken; 
nor  has  there  been  any  testimony  taken  in  the  case  with  closed  doors,  save  that  of  a  few 
witnesses,  who  testified,  not  in  regard  to  the  accused  or  either  of  them,  but  in  respect  to 
the  traitors  and  conspirators  not  on  trial,  who  were  alleged  to  have  incited  this  crime. 
Who  is  there  to  say  that  the  American  people,  in  time  of  armed  rebellion  and  civil  war, 
have  not  the  right  to  make  such  an  examination  as  secretly  as  they  may  deem  necessary, 
either  in  a  military  or  civil  court? 

I  have  said  this,  not  by  way  of  apology  for  anything  the  government  has  done  or 
attempted  to  do  in  the  progress  of  this  trial,  but  to  expose  the  animus  of  the  argument, 
and  to  repel  the  accusation  against  my  country  sent  out  to  the  world  by  the  counsel. 
From  anything  that  he  has  said,  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  American  people  have  not 
the  right  to  make  their  inquiries  secretly,  touching  a  general  conspiracy  in  aid  of  an 
existing  rebellion,  which  involves  their  nationality  and  the  peace  and  security  of  all. 

The  gentleman  then  enters  into  a  learned  argument  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that, 
by  the  Constitution,  the  people  of  the  United  States  cannot,  in  war  or  in  peace,  subject 
any  person  to  trial  before  a  military  tribunal,  whatever  may  be  his  crime  or  offence, 
unless  such  person  be  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States.  The  con 
duct  of  this  argument  is  as  remarkable  as  its  assaults  upon  the  government  are  unwar 
ranted,  and  its  insinuations  about  the  revival  of  the  Inquisition  and  secret  trials  are 
inexcusable.  The  court  will  notice  that  the  argument,  from  the  beginning  almost  to  its 
conclusion,  insists  that  no  person  is  liable  to  be  tried  by  military  or  martial  law  before  a 
military  tribunal,  save  those  in  the  land  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States.  I 
repeat,  the  conduct  of  this  argument  of  the  gentleman  is  remarkable.  As  an  instance, 
I  ask  the  attention  not  only  of  this  court,  but  of  that  public  whom  he  has  ventured  to 
address  in  this  tone  and  temper,  to  the  authority  of  the  distinguished  Chancellor  Kent, 
whose  great  name  the  counsel  has  endeavored  to  press  into  his  service  in  support  of  his 
general  proposition,  that  no  person  save  those  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the 
United  States  is  liable  to  be  tried  for  any  crime  whatever,  either  in  peace  or  in  war, 
before  a  military  tribunal. 

The  language  of  the  gentleman,  after  citing  the  provision  of  the  Constitution,  "  that 
no  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime  unless  on  a 
presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising  in  the  land  or  naval 
forces  or  in  the  militia,  when  in  actual  service  in  time  of  war  or  public  danger,"  is, 
"  that  this  exception  is  designed  to  leave  in  force,  not  to  enlarge,  the  power  vested  in 
Congress  by  the  original  Constitution  to  make  rules  for  the  government  and  regulation 
of  the  land  and  naval  forces;  that  the  land  or  naval  forces  are  the  terms  used  in  both, 
have  the  same  meaning,  and  until  lately  have  been  supposed  by  every  commentator  and 
judge  to  exclude  from  military  jurisdiction  offences  committed  by  citizens  not  belonging 
to  such  forces."  The  learned  gentleman  then  adds:  "  Kent,  in  a  note  to  his  ist  Com 
mentaries,  341,  states,  and  with  accuracy,  that  'military  and  naval  crimes  and  offences 


334  APPENDIX. 

committed  while  the  party  is  attached  to  and  under  the  immediate  authority  of  the  army 
and  navy  of  the  United  States  and  in  actual  service,  are  not  cognizable  under  the  com- ' 
mon-law  jurisdiction  of  the  courts  of  the  United  States.'  "  I  ask  this  court  to  bear  in 
mind  that  this  is  the  only  passage  which  he  quotes  from  this  note  of  Kent  in  his  argu 
ment,  and  that  no  man  possessed  of  common  sense,  however  destitute  he  may  be  of  the 
exact  and  varied  learning  in  the  law  to  which  the  gentleman  may  rightfully  lay  claim, 
can  for  a  moment  entertain  the  opinion  that  the  distinguished  chancellor  of  New  York, 
in  the  passage  just  cited,  intimates  any  such  thing  as  the  counsel  asserts,  that  the  Con 
stitution  excludes  from  military  jurisdiction  offences  committed  by  citizens  not  belonging 
to  the  land  or  naval  forces. 

Who  can  fail  to  see  that  Chancellor  Kent,  by  the  passage  cited,  only  decides  that 
military  and  naval  crimes  and  offences  committed  by  a  party  attached  to  and  under  the 
immediate  authority  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  and  in  actual  service, 
are  not  cognizable  under  the  common-law  jurisdiction  of  the  courts  of  the  United  States? 
He  only  says  they  are  not  cognizable  under  its  common-law  jurisdiction;  but  by  that  he 
does  not  say  or  intimate  what  is  attempted  to  be  said  by  the  counsel  for  him,  that  "  all 
crimes  committed  by  citizens  are  by  the  Constitution  excluded  from  military  jurisdiction," 
and  that  the  perpetrators  of  them  can  under  no  circumstances  be  tried  before  military 
tribunals.  Yet  the  counsel  ventures  to  proceed,  standing  upon  this  passage  quoted  from 
Kent,  to  say  that,  "according  to  this  great  authority,  every  other  class  of  persons  and 
every  other  species  of  offences  are  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  civil  courts,  and  entitled 
to  the  protection  of  the  proceeding  by  presentment  or  indictment  and  the  public  trial  in 
such  a  court." 

Whatever  that  great  authority  may  have  said  elsewhere,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
any  candid  man  in  America  will  be  able  to  come  to  the  very  learned  and  astute  conclu 
sion  that  Chancellor  Kent  has  so  stated  in  the  note  or  any  part  of  the  note  which  the 
gentleman  has  just  cited.  If  he  has  said  it  elsewhere,  it  is  for  the  gentleman,  if  he 
relies  upon  Kent  for  authority,  to  produce  the  passage.  But  was  it  fair  treatment  of  this 
"  great  authority  "  :  was  it  not  taking  an  unwarrantable  privilege  with  the  distinguished 
chancellor  and  his  great  work,  the  enduring  monument  of  his  learning  and  genius,  to  so 
mutilate  the  note  referred  to  as  might  leave  the  gentleman  at  liberty  to  make  his  deduc 
tions  and  assertions  under  cover  of  the  great  name  of  the  New  York  chancellor,  to  suit 
the  emergency  of  his  case  by  omitting  the  following  passage,  which  occurs  in  the  same 
note,  and  absolutely  excludes  the  conclusion  so  defiantly  put  forth  by  the  counsel  to 
support  his  argument?  In  that  note  Chancellor  Kent  says:  — 

"  Military  law  is  a  system  of  regulations  for  the  government  of  the  armies  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States,  authorized  by  the  act  of  Congress  of  April  10,  1806, 
known  as  the  Articles  of  War,  and  naval  law  is  a  similar  system  for  the  government  of 
the  navy,  under  the  act  of  Congress  of  April  23,  1800.  But  martial  law  is  quite  a  dis 
tinct  thing,  and  is  founded  upon  paramount  necessity  and  proclaimed  by  a  military  clncj." 

However  unsuccessful,  after  this  exposure,  the  gentleman  appears  in  maintaining 
his  monstrous  proposition,  that  the  American  people  are  by  their  own  Constitution 
forbidden  to  try  the  aiders  and  abettors  of  armed  traitors  and  rebellion  before  military 
tribunals,  and  subject  them,  according  to  the  laws  of  war  and  the  usages  of  nations,  to 
just  punishment  for  their  great  crimes,  it  has  been  made  clear  from  what  I  have  already 
stated  that  he  has  been  eminently  successful  in  mutilating  this  beautiful  production  of 
that  great  mind;  which  act  of  mutilation  every  one  knows  is  violative  alike  of  the  laws 
of  peace  and  war.  Even  in  war  the  divine  creations  of  art  and  the  immortal  productions 
of  genius  and  learning  are  spared. 


APPENDIX.  335 

In  the  same  spirit,  and  it  seems  to  me  with  the  same  unfairness  as  that  just  noted, 
the  learned  gentleman  has  very  adroitly  pressed  into  his  service  by  an  extract  from  the 
autobiography  of  the  war-worn  veteran  and  hero,  General  Scott,  the  names  of  the  late 
secretary  of  war,  Mr.  Marcy,  and  the  learned  ex-attorney  general,  Mr.  Gushing. 
This  adroit  performance  is  achieved  in  this  way :  after  stating  the  fact  that  General  Scott 
in  Mexico  proclaimed  martial  law  for  the  trial  and  punishment  by  military  tribunals  of 
persons  guilty  of  "  assassination,  murder,  and  poisoning,"  the  gentleman  proceeds  to 
quote  from  the  autobiography,  "that  this  order  when  handed  to  the  then  secretary  of 
war  (Mr.  Marcy)  for  his  approval,  'a  startle  at  the  title  (martial  law  order)  was  the 
only  comment  he  then  or  ever  made  on  the  subject,'  and  that  it  was  '  soon  silently 
returned  as  too  explosive  for  safe  handling.'  'A  little  later  (he  adds)  the  attorney 
general  (Mr.  Gushing)  called  and  asked  for  a  copy,  and  the  law  officer  of  the  govern 
ment,  whose  business  it  is  to  speak  on  all  such  matters,  was  stricken  with  legal  dumb 
ness.'1  ':  Thereupon  the  learned  gentleman  proceeds  to  say:  "  How  much  more  startled 
and  more  paralyzed  would  these  great  men  have  been  had  they  been  consulted  on  such 
a  commission  as  this  !  A  commission,  not  to  sit  in  another  country,  and  to  try  offences 
not  provided  for  in  any  law  of  the  United  States,  civil  or  military,  then  in  force,  but  in 
their  own  country,  and  in  a  part  of  it  where  there  are  laws  providing  for  their  trial  and 
punishment,  and  civil  courts  clothed  with  ample  powers  for  both,  and  in  the  daily  and 
undisturbed  exercise  of  their  jurisdiction." 

I  think  I  may  safely  say,  without  stopping  to  make  any  special  references,  that  the 
official  career  of  the  late  secretary  of  war  (Mr.  Marcy)  gave  no  indication  that  he  ever 
doubted  or  denied  the  constitutional  power  of  the  American  people,  acting  through  their 
duly  constituted  agents,  to  do  any  act  justified  by  the  laws  of  war  for  the  suppression  of 
a  rebellion  or  to  repel  invasion.  Certainly  there  is  nothing  in  this  extract  from  the 
autobiography  which  justifies  any  such  conclusion.  He  was  startled  we  are  told.  It 
may  have  been  as  much  the  admiration  he  had  for  the  boldness  and  wisdom  of  the 
conqueror  of  Mexico  as  any  abhorrence  he  had  for  the  trial  and  punishment  of 
"  assassins,  poisoners,  and  murderers,"  according  to  the  laws  and  usages  of  war. 

But  the  official  utterances  of  the  ex-attorney  general,  Gushing,  with  which  the 
gentleman  doubtless  was  familiar  when  he  prepared  this  argument,  by  no  means  justify 
the  attempt  here  made  to  quote  him  as  authority  against  the  proclamation  and  enforce 
ment  of  martial  law  in  time  of  rebellion  and  civil  war.  That  distinguished  man,  not 
second  in  legal  attainments  to  any  who  have  held  that  position,  has  left  an  official 
opinion  of  record  touching  this  subject.  Referring  to  what  is  said  by  Sir  Mathew  Hale, 
in  his  "  History  of  the  Common  Law,"  concerning  martial  law,  wherein  he  limits  it,  as 
the  gentleman  has  seemed  by  the  whole  drift  of  his  argument  desirous  of  doing,  and 
says  that  it  is  "not  in  truth  and  in  reality  law,  but  something  indulged  rather  than 
allowed  as  a  law  —  the  necessity  of  government,  order,  and  discipline  in  an  army," 
Mr.  Gushing  makes  this  just  criticism:  "This  proposition  is  a  mere  composite  blunder, 
a  total  misapprehension  of  the  matter.  It  confounds  martial  law  and  law  military ;  it 
ascribes  to  the  former  the  uses  of  the  latter;  it  erroneouly  assumes  that  the  government 
of  a  body  of  troops  is  a  necessity  more  than  of  a  body  of  civilians  or  citizens.  It  con 
founds  and  confuses  all  the  relations  of  the  subject,  and  is  an  apt  illustration  of  the 
incompleteness  of  the  notions  of  the  common-law  jurists  of  England  in  regard  to  matters 
not  comprehended  in  that  limited  branch  of  legal  science  .  .  .  Military  law,  it  is 
now  perfectly  understood  in  England,  is  a  branch  of  the  law  of  the  land,  applicable 
only  to  certain  acts  of  a  particular  class  of  persons  and  administered  by  special  tribunals; 


336  APPENDIX. 

but  neither  in  that  nor  in  any  other  respect  essentially  differing  as  to  foundation  in 
constitutional  reason  from  admiralty,  ecclesiastical,  or  indeed  chancery  and  common  law. 

.  .  It  is  the  system  of  rules  for  the  government  of  the  army  and  navy  estab 
lished  by  successive  acts  of  Parliament.  .  .  .  Martial  law,  as  exercised  in  any 
country  by  the  commander  of  a  foreign  army,  is  an  element  of  lYiejits  belli. 

"  It  is  incidental  to  the  state  of  solemn  war,  and  appertains  to  the  law  of  nations. 
.  .  .  Thus,  while  the  armies  of  the  United  States  occupied  different  provinces 
of  the  Mexican  republic,  the  respective  commanders  were  not  limited  in  authority  by 
any  local  law.  They  allowed,  or  rather  required,  the  magistrates  of  the  country, 
municipal  or  judicial,  to  continue  to  administer  the  laws  of  the  country  among  their 
countrymen;  but  in  subjection  always  to  the  military  power,  which  acted  summarily  and 
according  to  discretion,  when  the  belligerent  interests  of  the  conqueror  required  it,  and 
which  exercised  jurisdiction,  either  summarily  or  by  means  of  military  commissions  for 
the  protection  or  the  punishment  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  in  Mexico." — 
Opinions  of  Attorneys  General,  vol.  viii.,  366-69. 

Mr.  Gushing  says,  "  That,  it  would  seem,  was  one  of  the  forms  of  martial  law  ";  but 
he  adds  that  such  an  example  of  martial  law  administered  by  a  foreign  army  in  the 
enemy's  country  "  does  not  enlighten  us  in  regard  to  the  question  of  martial  law  in 
one's  own  country,  and  as  administered  by  its  military  commanders.  That  is  a  case 
which  the  law  of  nations  does  not  reach.  Its  regulation  is  of  the  domestic  resort  of  the 
organic  laws  of  the  country  itself,  and  regarding  which,  as  it  happens,  there  is  no 
definite  or  explicit  legislation  in  the  United  States,  as  there  is  none  in  England. 

"Accordingly,  in  England,  as  we  have  seen,  Earl  Grey  assumes  that  when  martial 
law  exists  it  has  no  legal  origin,  but  is  a  mere  fact  of  necessity  to  be  legalized  afterwards 
by  a  bill  of  indemnity  if  there  be  occasion.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that,  under 
existing  laws,  such  may  not  also  be  the  case  in  the  United  States." — Ibid.,  370. 

After  such  a  statement,  wherein  ex-Attorney  General  Gushing  very  clearly  recognizes 
the  right  of  this  government,  as  also  of  England,  to  employ  martial  law  as  a  means  of 
defence  in  a  time  of  war,  whether  domestic  or  foreign,  he  will  be  as  much  surprised 
when  he  reads  the  argument  of  the  learned  gentleman,  wherein  he  is  described  as  being 
struck  with  legal  dumbness  at  the  mere  mention  of  proclaiming  martial  law  and  its 
enforcement  by  the  commander  of  our  army  in  Mexico,  as  the  late  secretary  of  war 
was  startled  with  even  the  mention  of  its  title. 

Even  some  of  the  reasons  given,  and  certainly  the  power  exercised  by  the  veteran 
hero  himself,  would  seem  to  be  in  direct  conflict  with  the  propositions  of  the  learned 
gentleman. 

The  lieutenant-general  says  he  "excludes  from  his  order  cases  already  cognizable  by 
court-martial,  and  limits  it  to  cases  not  provided  for  in  the  act  of  Congress  establishing 
rules  and  articles  for  the  government  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States."  Has  not  the 
gentleman  who  attempts  to  press  General  Scott  into  his  service  argued  and  insisted  upon 
it  that  the  commander  of  the  army  cannot  subject  the  soldiers  under  his  command  to 
any  control  or  punishment  whatever,  save  that  which  is  provided  for  in  the  articles? 

It  will  not  do,  in  order  to  sustain  the  gentleman's  hypothesis,  to  say  that  these  pro 
visions  of  the  Constitution,  by  which  he  attempts  to  fetter  the  power  of  the  people  to 
punish  such  offences  in  time  of  war  within  the  territory  of  the  United  States,  may  be 
disregarded  by  an  officer  of  the  United  States  in  command  of  its  armies,  in  the  trial  and 
punishment  of  its  soldiers  in  a  foreign  war.  The  law  of  the  United  States  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  its  own  armies  follows  the  flag  upon  every  sea  and  in  every  land. 


APPENDIX.  337- 

The  truth  is,  that  the  right  of  the  people  to  proclaim  and  execute  martial  law  is  a 
necessary  incident  of  war,  and  this  was  the  right  exercised,  and  rightfully  exercised,  by 
Lieutenant-General  Scott  in  Mexico.  It  was  what  Earl  Grey  has  justly  said  was  a  "  fact 
of  necessity,"  and  I  may  add,  an  act  as  clearly  authorized  as  was  the  act  of  righting  the 
enemy  when  they  appeared  before  him. 

In  making  this  exception,  the  lieutenant-general  followed  the  rule  recognized  by  the 
American  authorities  on  military  law,  in  which  it  is  declared  that  "  many  crimes  com 
mitted  even  by  military  officers,  enlisted  men,  or  camp-retainers,  cannot  be  tried  under 
the  rules  and  articles  of  war.  Military  commissions  must  be  resorted  to  for  such  cases,. 
and  these  commissions  should  be  ordered  by  the  same  authority,  be  constituted  in  a 
similar  manner,  and  their  proceedings  be  conducted  according  to  the  same  general  rules, 
as  general  courts-martial." — Benct,  15. 

There  remain  for  me  to  notice,  at  present,  two  other  points  in  this  extraordinary- 
speech:  first,  that  martial  law  does  not  warrant  a  military  commission  for  the  trial  of 
military  offences  —  that  is,  offences  committed  in  time  of  war  in  the  interests  of  the 
public  enemy  and  by  concert  and  agreement  with  the  enemy;  and  second,  that  martini 
law  does  not  prevail  in  the  United  States,  and  has  never  been  declared  by  any  compe 
tent  authority. 

It  is  not  necessary,  as  the  gentleman  himself  has  declined  to  argue  the  first  point,  — 
whether  martial  law  authorizes  the  organization  of  military  commissions  by  order  of  the 
commander-in-chief  to  try  such  offences,  —  that  I  should  say  more  than  that  the  authority 
just  cited  by  me  shows  that  such  commissions  are  authorized  under  martial  law,  and  are 
created  by  the  commander  for  the  trial  of  all  such  offences  when  their  punishment  by 
court-martial  is  not  provided  for  by  the  express  statute  law  of  the  country. 

The  second  point,  —  that  martial  law  has  not  been  declared  by  any  competent  author 
ity, —  is  an  arraignment  of  the  late  murdered  President  of  the  United  States  for  his 
proclamation  of  September  24,  1862,  declaring  martial  law  throughout  the  United  States, 
and  of  which,  in  Lawrence's  edition  of  Wheaton  on  International  Law,  p.  522,  it  is 
said,  "  Whatever  may  be  the  inference  to  be  deduced  either  from  constitutional  or  inter 
national  law,  or  from  the  usages  of  European  governments,  as  to  the  legitimate  deposi 
tory  of  the  power  of  suspending  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  the  virtual  abrogation  of  the 
judiciary  in  cases  affecting  individual  liberty,  and  the  establishment  as  matter  of  fact  in 
the  United  States,  by  the  Executive  alone,  of  martial  law,  not  merely  in  the  insurrec 
tionary  districts  or  in  cases  of  military  occupancy,  but  throughout  the  entire  Union,  and 
not  temporarily,  but  as  an  institution  as  permanent  as  the  insurrection  on  which  it  pro 
fesses  to  be  based,  and  capable  on  the  same  principle  of  being  revived  in  all  cases  of 
foreign  as  well  as  civil  war,  are  placed  beyond  question  by  the  President's  proclamation 
of  September  24,  1862."  That  proclamation  is  as  follows:  — 

"Bv  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 

"A    PROCLAMATION. 

"  Whereas  it  has  become  necessary  to  call  into  service  not  only  volunteers,  but  also 
portions  of  the  militia  of  the  states,  by  a  draft,  in  order  to  suppress  the  insurrection- 
existing  m  the  United  States,  and  disloyal  persons  are  not  adequately  restrained  by  the 
ordinary  processes  of  law  from  hindering  this  measure  and  from  giving  aid  and  comfort 
in  various  ways  _to  the  insurrection:  Now,  therefore,  be  it  ordered  that,  during  the 
existing  insurrection,  and  as  a  necessary  means  for  suppressing  the  same,  all  rebels  and1 
insurgents,  their  aiders  and  abettors,  within  the  United  States,  and  all  persons  discour 
aging  volunteer  enlistments,  resisting  militia  drafts,  or  guilty  of  any  disloyal  practice 


338  APPENDIX. 

affording  aid  and  comfort  to  rebels,  against  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  shall  be 
subject  to  martial  law  and  liable  to  trial  and  punishment  by  courts-martial  or  military 
commission. 

"  Second.  That  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  is  suspended  in  respect  to  all  persons 
arrested,  or  who  are  now,  or  hereafter  during  the  rebellion  shall  be,  imprisoned  in  any 
fort,  camp,  arsenal,  military  prison,  or  other  place  of  confinement,  by  any  military 
authority  or  by  the  sentence  of  any  court-martial  or  military  commission. 

"  In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United 
States  to  be  affixed. 

"  Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  24th  day  of  September,  A.D.  1862,  and  of 
the  independence  of  the  United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

"ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"  By  the  President: 

"  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD, 

"  Secretary  of  State." 

This  proclamation  is  duly  certified  from  the  War  Department  to  be  in  full  force  and 
not  revoked,  and  is  evidence  of  record  in  this  case;  and  but  a  few  days  since  a  procla 
mation  of  the  President,  of  which  this  court  will  take  notice,  declares  that  the  same 
remains  in  full  force. 

It  has  been  said  by  another  of  the  counsel  for  the  accused  (Mr.  Stone)  in  his  argu 
ment,  that,  admitting  its  validity,  the  proclamation  ceases  to  have  effect  with  the  insur 
rection,  and  is  terminated  by  it.  It  is  true  the  proclamation  of  martial  law  only 
continues  during  the  insurrection;  but  inasmuch  as  the  question  of  the  existence  of 
an  insurrection  is  a  political  question,  the  decision  of  which  belongs  exclusively  to  the 
political  department  of  the  government,  that  department  alone  can  declare  its  existence, 
and  that  department  alone  can  declare  its  termination,  and  by  the  action  of  the  political 
department  of  the  government  every  judicial  tribunal  in  the  land  is  concluded  and 
bound.  That  question  has  been  settled  for  fifty  years  in  this  country  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States :  First,  in  the  case  of  Brown  vs.  The  United  States 
(8  Cranch);  also  in  the  prize  cases  (2  Black,  641).  Nothing  more,  therefore,  need 
be  said  upon  this  question  of  an  existing  insurrection  than  this:  The  political  depart 
ment  of  the  government  has  heretofore  proclaimed  an  insurrection;  that  department  has 
not  yet  declared  the  insurrection  ended,  and  the  event  on  the  I4th  of  April,  which 
robbed  the  people  of  their  chosen  Executive,  and  clothed  this  land  in  mourning,  bore 
sad  but  overwhelming  witness  to  the  fact  that  the  rebellion  is  not  ended.  The  fact  of 
the  insurrection  is  not  an  open  question  to  be  tried  or  settled  by  parol,  either  in  a  mili 
tary  tribunal  or  in  a  civil  court. 

The  declaration  of  the  learned  gentleman  who  opened  the  defence  (Mr.  Johnson), 
that  martial  law  has  never  been  declared  by  any  competent  authority,  as  I  have  already 
said,  arraigns  Mr.  Lincoln  for  a  usurpation  of  power.  Does  the  gentleman  mean  to  say 
that,  until  Congress  authorizes  it,  the  President  cannot  proclaim  and  enforce  martial  law 
in  the  suppression  of  armed  and  organized  rebellion?  Or  does  he  only  affirm  that  this 
act  of  the  late  President  is  a  usurpation? 

The  proclamation  of  martial  law  in  1862  a  usurpation!  though  it  armed  the  people 
in  that  dark  hour  of  trial  with  the  means  of  defence  against  traitorous  and  secret  enemies 
in  every  state  and  district  of  the  country;  though  by  its  use  some  of  the  guilty  were 
brought  to  swift  and  just  judgment,  and  others  deterred  from  crime  or  driven  to  flight; 
though  by  this  means  the  innocent  and  defenceless  were  protected;  though  by  this 
means  the  city  of  the  gentleman's  residence  was  saved  from  the  violence  and  pillage  of 
the  mob  and  the  torch  of  the  incendiary.  But,  says  the  gentleman,  it  was  a  usurpation, 
forbidden  by  the  laws  of  the  land  ! 


APPENDIX. 


339 


The  same  was  said  of  the  proclamations  of  blockade  issued  April  19  and  27,  1861, 
•which  declared  a  blockade  of  the  ports  of  the  insurgent  states,  and  that  all  vessels 
violating  the  same  were  subjects  of  capture,  and,  together  with  the  cargo,  to  be  con 
demned  as  prize.  Inasmuch  as  Congress  had  not  then  recognized  the  fact  of  civil  war, 
these  proclamations  were  denounced  as  void.  The  Supreme  Court  decided  otherwise, 
and  affirmed  the  power  of  the  Executive  thus  to  subject  property  on  the  seas  to  seizure 
and  condemnation.  I  read  from  that  decision:  — 

"  The  Constitution  confers  upon  the  President  the  whole  executive  power,  he  is 
bound  to  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed;  he  is  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  militia  of  the  several  states  when 
called  into  the  actual  service  of  the  United  States.  .  .  .  Whether  the  President,  in 
fulfilling  his  duties  as  Commander-in-Chief  in  suppressing  an  insurrection,  has  met  with 
such  armed  hostile  resistance  and  a  civil  war  of  such  alarming  proportions  as  will  compel 
him  to  accord  to  them  the  character  of  belligerents,  is  a  question  to  be  decided  by  him> 
and  this  court  must  be  governed  by  the  decisions  and  acts  of  the  political  department  of 
the  government  to  which  this  power  was  intrusted.  He  must  determine  what  degree  of 
force  the  crisis  demands. 

"The  proclamation  of  blockade  is  itself  official  and  conclusive  evidence  to  the  court 
that  a  state  of  war  existed  which  demanded  and  authorized  a  recourse  to  such  a  measure 
under  the  circumstances  peculiar  to  the  case."  (2  Black,  670.) 

It  has  been  solemnly  ruled  by  the  same  tribunal,  in  an  earlier  case,  "  that  the  power 
is  confided  to  the  Executive  of  the  Union  to  determine  when  it  is  necessary  to  call  out 
the  militia  of  the  states  to  repel  invasion,"  as  follows:  "  That  he  is  necessarily  consti 
tuted  the  judge  of  the  existence  of  the  exigency  in  the  first  instance,  and  is  bound  to  act 
according  to  his  belief  of  the  facts.  If  he  does  so  act,  and  decides  to  call  forth  the 
militia,  his  orders  for  this  purpose  are  in  strict  conformity  with  the  provisions  of  the 
law;  and  it  would  seem  to  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence,  that  every  act  done  by  a 
subordinate  officer  in  obedience  to  such  orders,  is  equally  justifiable.  The  law  con 
templates  that,  under  such  circumstances,  orders  shall  be  given  to  carry  the  power  into 
effect;  and  it  cannot  therefore  be  a  correct  inference  that  any  other  person  has  a  just 
right  to  disobey  them.  The  law  does  not  provide  for  any  appeal  from  the  judgment 
of  the  President,  or  for  any  right  in  subordinate  officers  to  review  his  decision,  and  in 
effect  defeat  it.  Whenever  a  statute  gives  a  discretionary  power  to  any  person,  to  be 
exercised  by  him  upon  his  own  opinion  of  certain  facts,  it  is  a  sound  rule  of  construc 
tion  that  the  statute  constitutes  him  the  sole  and  exclusive  judge  of  the  existence  of 
those  facts."  (12  Wheaton,  31.) 

In  the  light  of  these  decisions,  it  must  be  clear  to  every  mind  that  the  question  of 
the  existence  of  an  insurrection,  and  the  necessity  of  calling  into  requisition  for  its 
suppression  both  the  militia  of  the  states  and  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States, 
and  of  proclaiming  martial  law,  which  is  an  essential  condition  of  war,  whether  foreign 
or  domestic,  must  rest  with  the  officer  of  the  government  who  is  charged  by  the  express 
terms  of  the  Constitution  with  the  performance  of  this  great  duty  for  the  common 
defence  and  the  execution  of  the  laws  of  the  Union. 

But  it  is  further  insisted  by  the  gentleman  in  this  argument,  that  Congress  has  not 
authorized  the  establishment  of  military  commissions,  which  are  essential  to  the  judicial 
administration  of  martial  law  and  the  punishment  of  crimes  committed  during  the 
existence  of  a  civil  war,  and  especially  that  such  commissions  are  not  so  authorized  to 
try  persons  other  than  those  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  or  in 


34O  APPENDIX. 

the  militia  of  the  several  States,  when  in  the  actual  service  of  the  United  States.  The 
gentleman's  argument  assuredly  destroys  itself,  for  he  insists  that  the  Congress,  as  the 
legislative  department  of  the  government,  can  pass  no  law  which,  either  in  peace  or  war, 
can  constitutionally  subject  any  citizen  not  in  the  land  or  naval  forces  to  trial  for  crime 
before  a  military  tribunal,  or  otherwise  than  by  a  jury  in  the  civil  courts. 

Why  does  the  learned  gentleman  now  tell  us  that  Congress  has  not  authorized  this  to 
be  done,  after  declaring  just  as  stoutly  that  by  the  fifth  and  sixth  amendments  to  the 
Constitution  no  such  military  tribunals  can  be  established  for  the  trial  of  any  person  not 
in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  or  in  the  militia  when  in  actual 
service,  for  the  commission  of  any  crime  whatever  in  time  of  war  or  insurrection?  It 
ought  to  have  occurred  to  the  gentleman  when  commenting  upon  the  exception  in  the 
fifth  article  of  the  Constitution,  that  there  was  a  reason  for  it  very  different  from  that 
which  he  saw  fit  to  assign,  and  that  reason  manifestly  upon  the  face  of  the  Constitution 
itself,  was,  that  by  the  eighth  section  of  the  first  article,  it  is  expressly  provided  that 
Congress  shall  have  power  to  make  rules  for  the  government  of  the  land  and  naval 
forces,  and  to  provide  for  organizing,  arming,  and  disciplining  the  militia,  and  for 
governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be  employed  in  the  service  of  the  United  States, 
and  that,  inasmuch  as  military  discipline  and  order  are  as  essential  in  an  army  in  time  of 
peace  as  in  time  of  war,  if  the  Constitution  would  leave  this  power  to  Congress  in 
peace,  it  must  make  the  exception,  so  that  rules  and  regulations  for  the  government  of 
the  army  and  navy  should  be  operative  in  time  of  peace  as  well  as  in  time  of  war; 
because  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  give  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  IN  TIME  OF 
PEACE,  in  all  criminal  prosecutions  by  indictment,  in  terms  embracing  every  human 
being  that  may  be  held  to  answer  for  crime  in  the  United  States;  and  therefore  if  the 
eighth  section  of  the  first  article  was  to  remain  in  full  force  IN  TIME  OF  PEACE,  the 
exception  must  be  made;  and,  accordingly,  the  exception  was  made.  But  by  the 
argument  we  have  listened  to,  this  court  is  told,  and  the  country  is  told,  that  IN  TIME 
OF  WAR  —  a  war  which  involves  in  its  dread  issue  the  lives  and  interests  of  us  all  —  the 
guarantees  of  the  Constitution  are  in  full  force  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  conspire 
with  the  enemy,  creep  into  your  camps,  murder  in  cold  blood,  in  the  interest  of  the 
invader  or  insurgent,  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  your  army,  and  secure  to  him  the  slow 
and  weak  provisions  of  the  civil  law,  while  the  soldier,  who  may,  when  overcome  by 
the  demands  of  exhausted  nature  which  cannot  be  resisted,  have  slept  at  his  post,  is 
subject  to  be  tried  upon  the  spot  by  a  military  tribunal  and  shot.  The  argument 
amounts  to  this :  that  as  military  courts  and  military  trials  of  civilians  in  time  of  war  are 
a  usurpation  and  tyranny,  and  as  soldiers  are  liable  to  such  arrests  and  trial,  Sergeant 
Corbett,  who  shot  Booth,  should  be  tried  and  executed  by  sentence  of  a  military  court; 
while  Booth's  co-conspirators  and  aiders  should  be  saved  from  any  such  indignity  as  a 
military  trial !  I  confess  that  I  am  too  dull  to  comprehend  the  logic,  the  reason,  or  the 
sense  of  such  a  conclusion  !  If  there  is  any  one  entitled  to  this  privilege  of  a  civil  trial 
at  a  remote  period,  and  by  a  jury  of  the  district,  IN  TIME  OF  CIVIL  WAR,  when  the 
foundations  of  the  republic  are  rocking  beneath  the  earthquake  tread  of  armed  rebellion, 
that  man  is  the  defender  of  the  republic.  It  will  never  do  to  say,  as  has  been  said  in 
this  argument,  that  the  soldier  is  not  liable  to  be  tried  in  time  of  war  by  a  military 
tribunal  for  any  other  offence  than  those  prescribed  in  the  rules  and  articles  of  war.  To 
my  mind,  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  citizen  and  soldier  alike,  in  time  of  civil  or 
foreign  war,  after  a  proclamation  of  martial  law,  are  triable  by  military  tribunals  for  all 
offences  of  which  they  may  be  guilty,  in  the  interests  of,  or  in  concert  with  the  enemy. 


APPENDIX.  341 

These  provisions,  therefore,  of  your  Constitution  for  indictment  and  trial  by  jury  in 
civil  courts  of  all  crimes  are,  as  I  shall  hereafter  show,  silent  and  inoperative  in  time  of 
war  when  the  public  safety  requires  it. 

The  argument  to  which  I  have  thus  been  replying,  as  the  court  will  not  fail  to 
perceive,  nor  that  public  to  which  the  argument  is  addressed,  is  a  labored  attempt  to 
establish  the  proposition,  that,  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  American 
people  cannot,  even  in  a  civil  war  the  greatest  the  world  has  ever  seen,  employ  martial 
law  and  military  tribunals  as  a  means  of  successfully  asserting  their  authority,  preserving 
their  nationality,  and  securing  protection  to  the  lives  and  property  of  all,  and  especially 
to  the  persons  of  those  to  whom  they  have  committed,  officially,  the  great  trust  of 
maintaining  the  national  authority.  The  gentleman  says,  with  an  air  of  perfect  con 
fidence,  that  he  denies  the  jurisdiction  of  military  tribunals  for  the  trial  of  civilians  in 
time  of  war,  because  neither  the  Constitution  nor  laws  justify,  but  on  the  contrary 
repudiate  them,  and  that  all  the  experience  of  the  past  is  against  it.  I  might  content 
myself  with  saying  that  the  practice  of  all  nations  is  against  the  gentleman's  conclusion. 
The  struggle  for  our  national  independence  was  aided  and  prosecuted  by  military 
tribunals  and  martial  law,  as  well  as  by  arms.  The  contest  for  American  nationality 
began  with  the  establishment,  very  soon  after  the  firing  of  the  first  gun  at  Lexington  on 
the  iQth  day  of  April,  1775,  °f  military  tribunals  and  martial  law.  On  the  3Oth  of 
June,  1775,  the  Continental  Congress  provided  that  ''whosoever,  belonging  to  the  con 
tinental  army,  shall  be  convicted  of  holding  correspondence  with,  or  giving  intelligence 
to  the  enemy,  either  indirectly  or  directly,  shall  suffer  such  punishment  as  by  a  court- 
martial  shall  be  ordered."  This  was  found  not  sufficient,  inasmuch  as  it  did  not  reach 
those  civilians  who,  like  certain  civilians  of  our  day,  claim  the  protection  of  the  civil 
law  in  time  of  war  against  military  arrests  and  military  trials  for  military  crimes.  There 
fore  the  same  Congress,  on  the  7th  of  November,  1775,  amended  this  provision  by 
striking  out  the  words  "  belonging  to  the  continental  army,"  and  adopting  the  article  as 
follows:  — 

"  All  persons  convicted  of  holding  a  treacherous  correspondence  with,  or  giving 
intelligence  to  the  enemy,  shall  suffer  death  or  such  other  punishment  as  a  general  court- 
martial  shall  think  proper." 

And  on  the  I7th  of  June,  1776,  the  Congress  added  an  additional  rule  — 

"That  all  persons  not  members  of,  nor  owing  allegiance  to,  any  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  who  should  be  found  lurking  as  spies  in  or  about  the  fortifications  or 
encampments  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  or  any  of  them,  shall  suffer  death, 
according  to  the  law  and  usage  of  nations,  by  the  sentence  of  a  court-martial  or  such 
other  punishment  as  a  court-martial  shall  direct." 

Comprehensive  as  was  this  legislation,  embracing  as  it  did  soldiers,  citizens,  and 
aliens,  subjecting  all  alike  to  trial  for  their  military  tribunals  of  justice,  according  to  the 
law  and  the  usage  of  nations,  it  was  found  to  be  insufficient  to  meet  that  most  dangerous 
of  all  crimes  committed  in  the  interests  of  the  enemy  by  citizens  in  time  of  war  —  the 
crime  of  conspiring  together  to  assassinate  or  seize  and  carry  away  the  soldiers  and  citi 
zens  who  were  loyal  to  the  cause  of  the  country.  Therefore,  on  the  27th  of  February, 
1778,  the  Congress  adopted  the  following  resolution:  — 

"Resolved,  That  whatever  inhabitant  of  these  states  shall  kill,  or  seize,  or  take  any  loyal 
citizen  or  citizens  thereof  and  convey  him,  her,  or  them  to  any  place  within  the  power 
of  the  enemy,  or  shall  ENTER  INTO  ANY  COMBINATION  for  such  purpose,  or  attempt  to 
carry  the  same  into  execution,  or  hath  assisted  or  shall  assist  therein;  or  shall,  by  giving 


342  APPENDIX. 

intelligence,  acting  as  a  guide,  or  in  any  manner  whatever,  aid  the  enemy  in  the  per 
petration  thereof,  he  shall  suffer  death  by  the  judgment  of  a  court-martial  as  a  traitor, 
assassin,  or  spy,  if  the  offence  be  committed  within  seventy  miles  of  the  headquarters  of 
the  grand  or  other  armies  of  these  states  where  a  general  officer  commands."  —  Jour 
nals  of  Congress,  vol.  ii,  pp.  459,  460. 

So  stood  the  law  until  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Every 
well-informed  man  knows  that  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  these  acts  the  courts  of 
justice,  having  cognizance  of  all  crimes  against  persons,  were  open  in  many  of  the 
states,  and  that  by  their  several  constitutions  and  charters,  which  were  then  the  supreme 
law  for  the  punishment  of  crimes  committed  within  their  respective  territorial  limits,  no 
man  was  liable  to  conviction  but  by  the  verdict  of  a  jury.  Take,  for  example,  the  pro 
visions  of  the  constitution  of  North  Carolina,  adopted  on  the  loth  of  November,  1776, 
and  in  full  force  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  last  resolution  by  Congress  above 
cited,  which  provisions  are  as  follows :  — 

"That  no  freeman  shall  be  put  to  answer  any  criminal  charge  but  by  indictment, 
presentment  or  impeachment." 

"  That  no  freeman  shall  be  convicted  of  any  crime  but  by  the  unanimous  verdict  of 
a  jury  of  good  and  lawful  men  in  open  court,  as  heretofore  used." 

This  was  the  law  in  1778  in  all  the  states,  and  the  provision  for  a  trial  by  jury  every 
one  knows  meant  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  impanelled  and  qualified  to  try  the  issue  in  a 
civil  court.  The  conclusion  is  not  to  be  avoided,  that  these  enactments  of  the  Congress 
under  the  Confederation  set  aside  the  trial  by  jury  within  the  several  states,  and  expressly 
provided  for  the  trial  by  court-martial  of  "any  of  the  inhabitants"  who,  during  the 
revolution,  might,  contrary  to  the  provisions  of  said  law,  and  in  aid  of  the  public 
enemy,  give  them  intelligence,  or  kill  any  loyal  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  enter 
into  any  combination  to  kill  or  carry  them  away.  How  comes  it,  if  the  argument  of 
the  counsel  be  true,  that  this  enactment  was  passed  by  the  Congress  of  1778,  when  the 
constitutions  of  the  several  states  at  that  day  as  fully  guaranteed  trial  by  jury  to  every 
person  held  to  answer  for  a  crime  as  does  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  at  this, 
hour?  Notwithstanding  this  fact,  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  any  loyal  man  ever  challenged,, 
during  all  the  period  of  our  conflict  for  independence  and  nationality,  the  validity  of 
that  law  for  the  trial,  for  military  offences,  by  military  tribunals,  of  all  offenders,  as  the 
law,  not  of  peace,  but  of  war,  and  absolutely  essential  to  the  prosecution  of  war.  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  saying  that  it  is  the  accepted  common  law  of  nations,  that  mar 
tial  law  is,  at  all  times  and  everywhere,  essential  to  the  successful  prosecution  of  war, 
whether  it  be  a  civil  or  a  foreign  war.  The  validity  of  these  acts  of  the  Continental  and 
Confederate  Congress  I  know  was  challenged,  but  only  by  men  charged  with  the  guilt 
of  their  country's  blood. 

Washington,  the  peerless,  the  stainless,  and  the  just,  with  whom  God  walked 
through  the  night  of  that  great  trial,  enforced  this  just  and  wise  enactment  upon  all 
occasions.  On  the  3Oth  of  September,  1780,  Joshua  H.  Smith,  by  the  order  of  General 
Washington,  was  put  upon  his  trial  before  a  court-martial,  convened  in  the  State  of 
New  York,  on  the  charge  of  there  aiding  and  assisting  Benedict  Arnold,  in  a  combina 
tion  with  the  enemy,  to  take,  kill,  and  seize  such  loyal  citizens  or  soldiers  of  the  United 
States  as  were  in  garrison  at  West  Point.  Smith  objected  to  the  jurisdiction,  averring; 
that  he  was  a  private  citizen,  not  in  the  military  or  naval  service,  and  therefore  was  only 
amenable  to  the  civil  authority  of  the  State,  whose  constitution  had  guaranteed  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury  to  all  persons  held  to  answer  for  crime.  ("Chandler's  Criminal 


APPENDIX.  343 

Trials,"  vol.  2,  p.  187.)  The  constitution  of  New  York  then  in  force  had  so  provided; 
but,  notwithstanding  that,  the  court  overruled  the  plea,  held  him  to  answer,  and  tried 
him.  I  repeat,  that  when  Smith  was  thus  tried  by  court-martial  the  constitution  of 
New  York  as  fully  guaranteed  trial  by  jury  in  the  civil  courts  to  all  civilians  charged  and 
held  to  answer  for  crimes  within  the  limits  of  that  State  as  does  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  guarantee  such  trial  within  the  limits  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  By  the 
second  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation  each  State  retained  "  its  sovereignty,"  and  every 
power,  jurisdiction,  and  right  not  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  in  Congress 
assembled.  By  those  articles  there  was  no  express  delegation  of  judicial  power; 
therefore  the  States  retained  it  fully. 

If  the  military  courts,  constituted  by  the  commander  of  the  army  of  the  United 
States  under  the  Confederation,  who  was  appointed  only  by  a  resolution  of  the 
Congress,  without  any  express  grant  of  power  to  authorize  it  —  his  office  not  being 
created  by  the  act  of  the  people  in  their  fundamental  law  —  had  jurisdiction  in  every 
State  to  try  and  put  to  death  "any  inhabitant"  thereof  who  should  kill  any  loyal 
citizen  or  enter  into  "any  combination"  for  any  such  purpose  therein  in  time  of  war, 
notwithstanding  the  provisions  of  the  constitution  and  laws  of  such  States,  how  can  any 
man  conceive  that  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  is  the  supreme  law 
over  every  State,  anything  in  the  constitution  and  laws  of  such  State  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  and  the  supreme  law  over  every  territory  of  the  republic  as  well,  the 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  of  the  United  States,  who  is  made  such  by  the  Consti 
tution,  and  by  its  supreme  authority  clothed  with  the  power  and  charged  with  the  duty 
of  directing  and  controlling  the  whole  military  power  of  the  United  States  in  time  of 
rebellion  or  invasion,  has  not  that  authority? 

I  need  not  remind  the  court  that  one  of  the  marked  differences  between  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was,  that  under  the  Confed 
eration  the  Congress  was  the  sole  depository  of  all  federal  power.  The  Congress  of 
the  Confederation,  said  Madison,  held  "  the  command  of  the  army."  (Fed.,  No.  38.) 
Has  the  Constitution,  which  was  ordained  by  the  people  the  better  "  to  insure  domestic 
tranquillity  and  to  provide  for  the  common  defence,"  so  fettered  the  great  power  of 
self-defence  against  armed  insurrection  or  invasion  that  martial  law,  so  essential  in  war, 
is  forbidden  by  that  great  instrument?  I  will  yield  to  no  man  in  reverence  for  or 
obedience  to  the  Constitution  of  my  country,  esteeming  it,  as  I  do,  a  new  evangel  to  the 
nations,  embodying  the  democracy  of  the  New  Testament  —  the  absolute  equality  of  all 
men  before  the  law,  in  respect  of  those  rights  of  human  nature  which  are  the  gift  of 
God,  and  therefore  as  universal  as  the  material  structure  of  man.  Can  it  be  that  this 
Constitution  of  ours,  so  divine  in  its  spirit  of  justice,  so  beneficent  in  its  results,  so  full 
of  wisdom  and  goodness  and  truth,  under  which  we  became  one  people,  a  great  and 
powerful  nationality,  has  in  terms  or  by  implication  denied  to  this  people  the  power  to 
crush  armed  rebellion  by  war,  and  to  arrest  and  punish,  during  the  existence  of  such 
rebellion,  according  to  the  laws  of  war  and  the  usages  of  nations,  secret  conspirators 
who  aid  and  abet  the  public  enemy? 

Here  is  a  conspiracy,  organized  and  prosecuted  by  armed  traitors  and  hired  assassins, 
receiving  the  moral  support  of  thousands  in  every  State  and  district,  who  pronounced 
the  war  for  the  Union  a  failure,  and  your  now  murdered  but  immortal  Commander-in- 
Chief  a  tyrant;  the  object  of  which  conspiracy,  as  the  testimony  shows,  was  to  aid  the 
tottering  rebellion  which  struck  at  the  nation's  life.  It  is  in  evidence  that  Davis, 
Thompson,  and  others,  chiefs  in  this  rebellion,  in  aid  of  the  same,  agreed  and  conspired 


344  APPENDIX. 

with  others  to  poison  the  fountains  of  water  which  supply  your  commercial  metropolis, 
and  thereby  murder  its  inhabitants;  to  secretly  deposit  in  the  habitations  of  the  people 
and  in  the  ships  in  your  harbors  inflammable  materials,  and  thereby  destroy  them  by 
fire;  to  murder  by  the  slow  and  consuming  torture  of  famine  your  soldiers,  captive  in 
their  hands;  to  import  pestilence  in  infected  clothes  to  be  distributed  in  your  capital 
and  camps,  and  thereby  murder  the  surviving  heroes  and  defenders  of  the  republic,  who, 
standing  by  the  holy  graves  of  your  unreturning  brave,  proudly  and  defiantly  challenge 
to  honorable  combat  and  open  battle  all  public  enemies,  that  their  country  may  live; 
and  finally,  to  crown  this  horrid  catalogue  of  crime,  this  sum  of  all  human  atrocities, 
conspired,  as  charged  upon  your  record,  with  the  accused  and  John  Wilkes  Booth  and 
John  H.  Surratt,  to  kill  and  murder  in  your  capital  the  executive  officers  of  your  gov 
ernment  and  the  commander  of  your  armies.  When  this  conspiracy,  entered  into  by 
these  traitors,  is  revealed  by  its  attempted  execution,  and  the  foul  and  brutal  murder  of 
your  President  in  the  capital,  you  are  told  that  it  is  unconstitutional,  in  order  to  arrest 
the  further  execution  of  the  conspiracy,  to  interpose  the  military  power  of  this  govern 
ment  for  the  arrest,  without  civil  process,  of  any  of  the  parties  thereto,  and  for  their 
trial  by  a  military  tribunal  of  justice.  If  any  such  rule  had  obtained  during  our  struggle 
for  independence  we  never  would  have  been  a  nation.  If  any  such  rule  had  been 
adopted  and  acted  upon  now,  during  the  fierce  struggle  of  the  past  four  years  no  man 
can  say  that  our  nationality  would  have  thus  long  survived. 

The  whole  people  of  the  United  States  by  their  Constitution  have  created  the  office 
of  President  of  the  United  States  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  and 
have  vested,  by  the  terms  of  that  Constitution,  in  the  person  of  the  President  and  Com- 
mander-in-Chicf,  the  power  to  enforce  the  execution  of  the  laws,  and  preserve,  protect, 
and  defend  the  Constitution. 

The  question  may  well  be  asked:  If,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  the  President  may  not, 
in  time  of  insurrection  or  war,  proclaim  and  execute  martial  law,  according  to  the  usages 
of  nations,  how  he  can  successfully  perform  the  duties  of  his  office  —  execute  the  laws, 
preserve  the  Constitution,  suppress  insurrection,  and  repel  invasion? 

Martial  law  and  military  tribunals  are  as  essential  to  the  successful  prosecution  of 
war  as  are  men  and  arms  and  munitions.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  has 
vested  the  power  to  declare  war  and  raise  armies  and  navies  exclusively  in  the  Congress, 
and  the  power  to  prosecute  the  war  and  command  the  army  and  navy  exclusively  in  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  As,  under  the  Confederation,  the  commander  of  the 
army,  appointed  only  by  the  Congress,  was  by  the  resolution  of  that  Congress  empowered 
to  act  as  he  might  think  proper  for  the  good  and  welfare  of  the  service,  subject  only  to 
such  restraints  or  orders  as  the  Congress  might  give,  so,  under  the  Constitution,  the 
President  is,  by  the  people  who  ordained  that  Constitution  and  declared  him  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  vested  with  full  power  to  direct  and  control  the  army 
and  navy  of  the  United  States,  and  employ  all  the  forces  necessary  to  preserve,  protect, 
and  defend  the  Constitution  and  execute  the  laws,  as  enjoined  by  his  oath  and  the  very 
letter  of  the  Constitution,  subject  to  no  restriction  or  direction  save  such  as  Congress 
may  from  time  to  time  prescribe. 

That  these  powers  for  the  common  defence,  intrusted  by  the  Constitution  exclusively 
to  the  Congress  and  the  President,  are,  in  time  of  civil  war  or  foreign  invasion,  to  be 
exercised  without  limitation  or  restraint,  to  the  extent  of  the  public  necessity,  and  with 
out  any  intervention  of  the  federal  judiciary  or  of  State  constitutions  or  State  laws,  are 
facts  in  our  history  not  open  to  question. 


APPENDIX.  345 

The  position  is  not  to  be  answered  by  saying  you  make  the  American  Congress 
thereby  omnipotent,  and  clothe  the  American  Executive  with  the  asserted  attribute  of 
hereditary  monarchy  —  the  king  can  do  no  wrong.  Let  the  position  be  fairly  stated  — 
that  the  Congress  and  President,  in  war  as  in  peace,  are  but  the  agents  of  the  whole 
people,  and  that  this  unlimited  power  for  the  common  defence  against  armed  rebellion 
•or  foreign  invasion  is  but  the  power  of  the  people  intrusted  exclusively  to  the  legislative 
and  executive  departments  as  their  agents,  for  any  and  every  abuse  of  which  these 
agents  are  directly  responsible  to  the  people  —  and  the  demagogue  cry  of  an  omnipo 
tent  Congress,  and  an  Executive  invested  with  royal  prerogatives,  vanishes  like  the 
baseless  fabric  of  a  vision.  If  the  Congress,  corruptly  or  oppressively,  or  wantonly 
abuse  this  great  trust,  the  people,  by  the  irresistible  power  of  the  ballot,  hurl  them  from 
place.  If  the  President  so  abuse  the  trust,  the  people  by  their  Congress  withhold  sup 
plies,  or  by  impeachment  transfer  the  trust  to  better  hands,  strip  him  of  the  franchises 
of  citizenship  and  of  office,  and  declare  him  forever  disqualified  to  hold  any  position  of 
honor,  trust,  or  power,  under  the  government  of  his  country. 

I  can  understand  very  well  why  men  should  tremble  at  the  exercise  of  this  great 
power  by  a  monarch  whose  person,  by  the  constitution  of  his  realm,  is  inviolable,  but  I 
•cannot  conceive  how  any  American  citizen,  who  has  faith  in  the  capacity  of  the  whole 
people  to  govern  themselves,  should  give  himself  any  concern  on  the  subject.  Mr. 
Hallam,  the  distinguished  author  of  the  Constitutional  History  of  England,  has  said:  — 

"  Kings  love  to  display  the  divinity  with  which  their  flatterers  invest  them  in  nothing 
so  much  as  in  the  instantaneous  execution  of  their  will,  and  to  stand  revealed,  as  it 
were,  in  the  storm  and  thunderbolt  when  their  power  breaks  through  the  operation  of 
secondary  causes  and  awes  a  prostate  nation  without  the  intervention  of  law." 

How  just  are  such  words  when  applied  to  an  irresponsible  monarch  !  how  absurd 
when  applied  to  a  whole  people,  acting  through  their  duly  appointed  agents,  whose  will, 
thus  declared,  is  the  supreme  law,  to  awe  into  submission  and  peace  and  obedience,  not 
a  prostrate  nation,  but  a  prostrate  rebellion  !  The  same  great  author  utters  the  fact 
which  all  history  attests,  when  he  says:  — 

"  It  has  been  usual  for  all  governments  during  actual  rebellion  to  proclaim  martial 
law  for  the  suspension  of  civil  jurisdiction;  and  this  anomaly,  I  must  admit,"  he  adds, 
"  is  very  far  from  being  less  indispensable  at  such  unhappy  seasons  where  the  ordinary 
mode  of  trial  is  by  jury  than  where  the  right  of  decision  resides  in  the  court."  —  Const. 
Ifi st.,  vol.  i,  ch.  5,  p.  326. 

That  the  power  to  proclaim  martial  law  and  fully  or  partially  suspend  the  civil  juris- 
•diction,  federal  and  state,  in  time  of  rebellion  or  civil  war,  and  punish  by  military  tribu 
nals  all  offences  committed  in  aid  of  the  public  enemy,  is  conferred  upon  Congress  and 
the  Executive,  necessarily  results  from  the  unlimited  grants  of  power  for  the  common 
defence  to  which  I  have  already  briefly  referred.  I  may  be  pardoned  for  saying  that 
this  position  is  not  assumed  by  me  for  the  purposes  of  this  occasion,  but  that  early  in  the 
first  year  of  this  great  struggle  for  our  national  life  I  proclaimed  it  as  a  representative  of 
ihe  people,  under  the  obligation  of  my  oath,  and,  as  I  then  believed  and  still  believe, 
upon  the  authority  of  the  great  men  who  formed  and  fashioned  the  wise  and  majestic 
fabric  of  American  government. 

Some  of  the  citations  which  I  deemed  it  my  duty  at  that  time  to  make,  and  some  of 
which  I  now  reproduce,  have,  I  am  pleased  to  say,  found  a  wider  circulation  in  books 
that  have  since  been  published  by  others. 

When  the  Constitution  was   on  trial  for  its   deliverance  before  the  people  of    the 


346  APPENDIX. 

several  States,  its  ratification  was  opposed  on  the  ground  that  it  conferred  upon  Congress 
and  the  Executive  unlimited  power  for  the  common  defence.  To  all  such  objectors  — 
and  they  were  numerous  in  every  State  —  that  great  man,  Alexander  Hamilton,  whose 
words  will  live  as  long  as  our  language  lives,  speaking  to  the  listening  people  of  all  the 
States  and  urging  them  not  to  reject  that  matchless  instrument  which  bore  the  name  of 
Washington,  said :  — 

"  The  authorities  essential  to  the  care  of  the  common  defence  are  these:  To  raise 
armies;  to  build  and  equip  fleets;  to  prescribe  rules  for  the  government  of  both;  to 
direct  their  operations;  to  provide  for  their  support.  These  powers  ought  to  exist 
WITHOUT  LIMITATION;  because  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  or  define  the  extent  and  vari 
ety  of  national  exigencies,  and  the  correspondent  extent  and  variety  of  the  means  which 
may  be  necessary  to  satisfy  them. 

"The  circumstances  that  endanger  the  safety  of  nations  are  infinite;  and  for  this, 
reason  no  constitutional  shackles  can  wisely  be  imposed  on  the  power  to  which  the  care 
of  it  is  committed.  .  .  .  This  power  ought  to  be  under  the  direction  of  the  same 
councils  which  are  appointed  to  preside  over  the  common  defence.  ...  It  must  be 
admitted,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  that  there  can  be  no  limitation  of  that  authority 
which  is  to  provide  for  the  defence  and  protection  of  the  community  in  any  manner 
essential  to  its  efficacy;  that  is,  in  any  matter  essential  to  the  formation,  direction,  or 
support  of  the  national  forces." 

He  adds  the  further  remark:  "This  is  one  of  those  truths  which,  to  a  correct  and 
unprejudiced  mind,  carries  its  own  evidence  along  with  it;  and  may  be  obscured,  but 
cannot  be  made  plainer  by  argument  or  reasoning.  It  rests  upon  axioms  as  simple  as 
they  are  universal  —  the  means  ought  to  be  proportioned  to  the  end;  the  persons  from 
whose  agency  the  attainment  of  any  end  is  expected  ought  to  possess  the  means  by 
which  it  is  to  be  attained."  —  Federalist^  No.  23. 

In  the  same  great  contest  for  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  Madison,  sometimes 
called  the  "  Father  of  the  Constitution,"  said:  — 

"  Is  the  power  of  declaring  war  necessary?  No  man  will  answer  this  question  in  the 
negative.  ...  Is  the  power  of  raising  armies  and  equipping  fleets  necessary? 
.  It  is  involved  in  the  power  of  self-defence.  .  .  .  With  what  color  of  propri 
ety  could  the  force  necessary  for  defence  be  limited  by  those  who  cannot  limit  the  force 
of  offence?  .  .  .  The  means  of  security  can  only  be  regulated  by  the  means  and 
the  danger  of  attack.  .  .  .  It  is  in  vain  to  oppose  constitutional  barriers  to  the 
impulse  of  self-preservation.  It  is  worse  than  in  vain,  because  it  plants  in  the  Consti 
tution  itself  necessary  usurpations  of  power."  —  Federalist,  No.  41. 

With  this  construction,  proclaimed  both  by  the  advocates  and  opponents  of  its  rati 
fication,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  accepted  and  adopted,  and  that  con 
struction  has  been  followed  and  acted  upon  by  every  department  of  the  government  to 
this  day. 

It  was  as  well  understood  then  in  theory  as  it  has  since  been  illustrated  in  practice, 
that  the  judicial  power,  both  federal  and  State,  had  no  voice  and  could  exercise  no- 
authority  in  the  conduct  and  prosecution  of  a  war,  except  in  subordination  to  the  politi 
cal  department  of  the  government.  The  Constitution  contains  the  significant  provision,. 
"  The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless  when  in  cases 
of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  public  safety  may  require  it." 

What  was  this  but  a  declaration,  that  in  time  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  public 
safety  is  the  highest  law?  —  that  so  far  as  necessary  the  civil  courts  (of  which  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief,  under  the  direction  of  Congress,  shall  be  the  sole  judge)  must  be 
silent,  "and  the  rights  of  each  citizen,  as  secured  in  time  of  peace,  must  yield  to  the 
wants,  interests,  and  necessities  of  the  nation?  Yet  we  have  been  gravely  told  by  the 


APPENDIX.  347 

gentleman  in  his  argument,  that  the  maxim,  salus  populi  suprema  est  lex^  is  but  fit  for 
a  tyrant's  use.  Those  grand  men,  whom  God  taught  to  build  the  fabric  of  empire, 
thought  otherwise  when  they  put  that  maxim  into  the  Constitution  of  their  country. 
It  is  very  clear  that  the  Constitution  recognizes  the  great  principle  which  underlies  the 
structure  of  society  and  of  all  civil  government;  that  no  man  lives  for  himself  alone, 
but  each  for  all;  that,  if  need  be,  some  must  die  that  the  State  may  live,  because  at 
best  the  individual  is  but  for  to-day,  while  the  commonwealth  is  for  all  time.  I  agree 
with  the  gentleman  in  the  maxim  which  he  borrows  from  Aristotle,  "  Let  the  public 
weal  be  under  the  protection  of  the  law  ";  but  I  claim  that  in  war,  as  in  peace,  by  the 
very  terms  of  the  Constitution  of  the  country,  the  public  safety  is  under  the  protection 
of  the  law;  that  the  Constitution  itself  has  provided  for  the  declaration  of  war  for 
the  common  defense,  to  suppress  rebellion,  to  repel  invasion,  and,  by  express  terms, 
has  declared  that  whatever  is  necessary  to  make  the  prosecution  of  the  war  successful 
may  be  done,  and  ought  to  be  done,  and  is  therefore  constitutionally  lawful. 

Who  will  dare  to  say  that  in  time  of  civil  war  "  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of 
life,  liberty,  and  property  without  due  process  of  law"?  This  is  a  provision  of  your 
Constitution  than  which  there  is  none  more  just  or  sacred  in  it;  it  is,  however,  only 
the  law  of  peace,  not  of  war.  In  peace,  that  wise  provision  of  the  Constitution  must 
be,  and  is,  enforced  by  the  civil  courts;  in  war  it  must  be,  and  is,  to  a  great  extent,, 
inoperative  and  disregarded.  The  thousands  slain  by  your  armies  in  battle  were 
deprived  of  life  "without  due  process  of  law."  All  spies  arrested,  convicted,  and 
executed  by  your  military  tribunals  in  time  of  war  are  deprived  of  liberty  and  life 
"  without  due  process  of  law  ";  all  enemies  captured  and  held  as  prisoners  of  war  are 
deprived  of  liberty  "without  due  process  of  law";  all  owners  whose  property  is. 
forcibly  seized  and  appropriated  in  war  are  deprived  of  their  property  "without  due 
process  of  law."  The  Constitution  recognizes  the  principle  of  common  law,  that  every 
man's  house  is  his  castle;  that  his  home,  the  shelter  of  his  wife  and  children,  is  his. 
most  sacred  possession;  and  has  therefore  specially  provided,  "that  no  soldier  shall 
in  time  of  peace  be  quartered  in  any  house  without  the  consent  of  its  owner,  nor  in. 
time  of  war,  but  in  a  manner  to  be  prescribed  by  law  [III  Amend.];  thereby  declar 
ing  that,  in  time  of  war,  Congress  may  by  law  authorize,  as  it  has  done,  that  without 
the  consent  and  against  the  consent  of  the  owner,  the  soldier  may  be  quartered  in  any 
man's  house  and  upon  any  man's  hearth.  What  I  have  said  illustrates  the  proposition,, 
that  in  time  of  war  the  civil  tribunals  of  justice  are  wholly  or  partially  silent,  as  the 
public  safety  may  require;  that  the  limitations  and  provisions  of  the  Constitution  in 
favor  of  life,  liberty,  and  property  are  therefore  wholly  or  partially  suspended.  In 
this  I  am  sustained  by  an  authority  second  to  none  with  intelligent  American  citizens. 
Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  than  whom  a  purer  man  or  a  wiser  statesman  never  ascended 
the  chair  of  the  chief  magistracy  in  America,  said  in  his  place  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  in  1836,  that:  — 

"  In  the  authority  given  to  Congress  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  to- 
declare  war,  all  the  powers  incident  to  war  are  by  necessary  implication  conferred  upon, 
the  government  of  the  United  States.  Now  the  powers  incidental  to  war  are  derived, 
not  from  their  internal  municipal  source,  but  from  the  laws  and  usages  of  nations. 
There  are,  then,  in  the  authority  of  Congress  and  the  Executive,  two  classes  of  powers- 
altogether  different  in  their  nature  and  often  incompatible  with  each  other  —  the  war 
power  and  the  peace  power.  The  peace  power  is  limited  by  regulations  and  restricted1 
by  provisions  prescribed  within  the  Constitution  itself.  The  war  power  is  limited  only 
by  the  laws  and  usage  of  nations.  This  power  is  tremendous;  it  is  strictly  constitu 
tional,  but  it  breaks  down  every  barrier  so  anxiously  erected  for  the  protection  of  lib 
erty,  of  property,  and  of  life." 


348  APPENDIX. 

If  this  be  so,  how  can  there  be  trial  by  jury  for  military  offenses  in  time  of  civil 
Avar?  If  you  cannot,  and  do  not,  try  the  armed  enemy  before  you  shoot  him,  or  the 
captured  enemy  before  you  imprison  him,  why  should  you  be  held  to  open  the  civil 
courts  and  try  the  spy,  the  conspirator,  and  the  assassin,  in  the  secret  service  of  the 
public  enemy,  by  jury,  before  you  convict  and  punish  him?  Why  not  clamor  against 
holding  imprisoned  the  captured  armed  rebels,  deprived  of  their  liberty  without  due 
process  of  law?  Are  they  not  citizens?  Why  not  clamor  against  slaying  for  their 
•crime  of  treason,  which  is  cognizable  in  the  civil  courts,  by  your  rifled  ordnance  and 
the  leaden  hail  of  your  musketry  in  battle,  these  public  enemies,  without  trial  by  jury? 
Are  they  not  citizens?  Why  is  the  clamor  confined  exclusively  to  the  trial  by  military 
tribunals  of  justice  of  traitorous  spies,  traitorous  conspirators,  and  assassins  hired  to  do 
secretly  what  the  armed  rebel  attempts  to  do  openly  —  murder  your  nationality  by 
assassinating  its  defenders  and  its  executive  officers?  Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that 
the  rebel  captured  prisoner,  being  a  citizen  of  the  republic,  is  as  much  entitled  to  trial 
l^y  jury  before  he  is  committed  to  prison,  as  the  spy,  or  the  aider  and  abetter  of  the 
treason  by  conspiracy  and  assassination,  being  a  citizen,  is  entitled  to  such  trial  by  jury, 
before  he  is  subjected  to  the  just  punishment  of  the  law  for  his  great  crime.  I  think 
that  in  time  of  war  the  remark  of  Montesquieu,  touching  the  civil  judiciary  is  true: 
that  "it  is  next  to  nothing."  Hamilton  well  said,  "  The  Executive  holds  the  sword  of 
the  community;  the  judiciary  has  no  direction  of  the  strength  of  society;  it  has  neither 
force  nor  will;  it  has  judgment  alone,  and  is  dependent  for  the  execution  of  that  upon 
the  arm  of  the  Executive."  The  people  of  these  States  so  understood  the  Constitution 
and  adopted  it,  and  intended  thereby,  without  limitation  or  restraint,  to  empower  their 
Congress  and  Executive  to  authorize  by  law,  and  execute  by  force,  whatever  the  public 
safety  might  require  to  suppress  rebellion  or  repel  invasion. 

Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  by  the  counsel  for  the  accused  to  the  con 
trary,  the  Constitution  has  received  this  construction  from  the  day  of  its  adoption  to 
this  hour.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  solemnly  decided  that  the 
Constitution  has  conferred  upon  the  government  authority  to  employ  all  the  means 
necessary  to  the  faithful  execution  of  all  the  powers  which  that  Constitution  enjoins 
upon  the  government  of  the  United  States,  and  upon  every  department  and  every 
officer  thereof.  Speaking  of  that  provision  of  the  Constitution  which  provides  that 
*' Congress  shall  have  power  to  make  all  laws  that  may  be  necessary  and  proper  to 
carry  into  effect  all  powers  granted  to  the  government  of  the  United  States,  or  to  any 
department  or  officer  thereof,"  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  in  his  great  decision  in  the  case 
of  McCulloch  vs.  State  of  Maryland,  says:  — 

"The  powers  given  to  the  government  imply  the  ordinary  means  of  execution,  and 
the  government,  in  all  sound  reason  and  fair  interpretation,  must  have  the  choice  of 
the  means  which  it  deems  the  most  convenient  and  appropriate  to  the  execution  of  the 
power.  .  .  .  The  powers  of  the  government  were  given  for  the  welfare  of  the 
nation;  they  were  intended  to  endure  for  ages  to  come,  and  to  be  adapted  to  the  vari 
ous  crises  in  human  affairs.  To  prescribe  the  specific  means  by  which  government 
should,  in  all  future  time,  execute  its  power,  and  to  confine  the  choice  of  means  to 
such  narrow  limits  as  should  not  leave  it  in  the  power  of  Congress  to  adopt  any  which 
might  be  appropriate  and  conducive  to  the  end,  would  be  most  unwise  and  pernicious." 
—  4  Wheaton,  420. 

Words  fitly  spoken!  which  illustrated  at  the  time  of  their  utterance  the  wisdom  of 
the  Constitution  in  providing  this  general  grant  of  power  to  meet  every  possible  exi 
gency  which  the  fortunes  of  war  might  cast  upon  the  country,  and  the  wisdom  of 


APPENDIX.  349 

which  words,  in  turn,  has  been  illustrated  to-day  by  the  gigantic  and  triumphant  strug 
gle  of  the  people  during  the  last  four  years  for  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution,  and 
in  exact  accordance  with  its  provisions.  In  the  light  of  these  wonderful  events,  the 
words  of  Pinckney,  uttered  when  the  illustrious  Chief  Justice  had  concluded  this  opin 
ion,  "The  Constitution  of  my  country  is  immortal!  "  seem  to  have  become  words  of 
prophecy.  Has  not  this  great  tribunal,  through  the  chief  of  all  its  judges,  by  this 
luminous  and  profound  reasoning,  declared  that  the  government  may  by  law  authorize 
the  Executive  to  employ,  in  the  prosecution  of  war,  the  ordinary  means,  and  all  the 
means  necessary  and  adapted  to  the  end?  And  in  the  other  decision  before  referred 
to,  in  the  8th  of  Cranch,  arising  during  the  late  war  with  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Justice 
Story  said :  — 

"  When  the  legislative  authority,  to  whom  the  right  to  declare  war  is  confided,  has 
declared  war  in  its  most  unlimited  manner,  the  executive  authority,  to  whom  the  execu 
tion  of  the  war  is  confided,  is  bound  to  carry  it  into  effect.  He  has  a  discretion  vested 
in  him  as  to  the  manner  and  extent,  but  he  cannot  lawfully  transcend  the  rules  of 
warfare  established  among  civilized  nations.  He  cannot  lawfully  exercise  powers  or 
authorize  proceedings  which  the  civilized  world  repudiates  and  disclaims.  The  sov 
ereignty,  as  to  declaring  war  and  limiting  its  effects,  rests  with  the  legislature.  The 
sovereignty  as  to  its  execution  rests  with  the  President.  —  Brown  vs.  United  States, 
8  Cranch,  153. 

Has  the  Congress,  to  whom  is  committed  the  sovereignty  of  the  whole  people  to 
declare  war,  by  legislation  restricted  the  President,  or  attempted  to  restrict  him,  in  the 
prosecution  of  this  war  for  the  Union,  from  exercising  all  the  "  powers  "  and  adopting 
all  the  "proceedings"  usually  approved  and  employed  by  the  civilized  world?  He 
would,  in  my  judgment,  be  a  bold  man  who  asserted  that  Congress  has  so  legis 
lated;  and  the  Congress  which  should  by  law  fetter  the  executive  arm  when  raised  for 
the  common  defense  would,  in  my  opinion,  be  false  to  their  oath.  That  Congress  may 
prescribe  rules  for  the  government  of  the  army  and  navy  and  the  militia  when  in  actual 
service,  by  articles  of  war,  is  an  express  grant  of  power  in  the  Constitution  which  Con 
gress  has  rightfully  exercised,  and  which  the  Executive  must  and  does  obey.  That 
Congress  may  aid  the  Executive  by  legislation  in  the  prosecution  of  a  war,  civil  or 
foreign,  is  admitted.  That  Congress  may  restrain  the  Executive,  and  arraign,  try,  and 
condemn  him  for  wantonly  abusing  the  great  trust,  is  expressly  declared  in  the  Consti 
tution.  That  Congress  shall  pass  all  laws  NECESSARY  to  enable  the  Executive  to  exe 
cute  the  laws  of  the  Union,  suppress  insurrection,  and  repel  invasion,  is  one  of  the 
express  requirements  of  the  Constitution,  for  the  performance  of  which  the  Congress 
is  bound  by  an  oath. 

What  was  the  legislation  of  Congress  when  treason  fired  its  first  gun  on  Sumter? 
By  the  act  of  1795  it  is  provided  that  whenever  the  laws  of  the  United  States  shall  be 
opposed,  or  the  execution  thereof  obstructed,  in  any  State,  by  combinations  too  power 
ful  to  be  suppressed  by  the  ordinary  course  of  judicial  proceeding  or  by  the  powers, 
vested  in  the  marshals,  it  shall  be  lawful  by  this  act  for  the  President  to  call  forth  the 
militia  of  such  State,  or  of  any  other  State  or  States,  as  may  be  necessary  to  suppress, 
such  combinations  and  to  cause  the  laws  to  be  executed  (ist  Statutes  at  Large,  424). 
By  the  act  of  1807  it  is  provided  that  in  case  of  insurrection  or  obstruction  to  the  laws, 
either  of  the  United  States  or  of  any  individual  State  or  territory,  where  it  is  lawful 
for  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  call  forth  the  militia  for  the  purpose  of  sup 
pressing  such  insurrection  or  of  causing  the  laws  to  be  duly  executed,  it  shall  be  law- 


35O  APPENDIX. 

ful  for  him  to  employ  for  such  purpose  such  part  of  the  land  or  naval  forces  of  the 
United  States  as  shall  be  judged  necessary  (2d  Statutes  at  Large,  443). 

Can  any  one  doubt  that  by  these  acts  the  President  is  clothed  with  full  power  to 
determine  whether  armed  insurrection  exists  in  any  State  or  territory  of  the  Union; 
and  if  so,  to  make  war  upon  it  with  all  the  force  he  may  deem  necessary  or  be  able  to 
command?  By  the  simple  exercise  of  this  great  power  it  necessarily  results  that  he 
may,  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  for  the  suppression  of  such  insurrection,  suspend 
as  far  as  may  be  necessary  the  civil  administration  of  justice  by  substituting  in  its  stead 
martial  law,  which  is  simply  the  common  law  of  war.  If  in  such  a  moment  the  Pres 
ident  may  make  no  arrests  without  civil  warrant,  and  may  inflict  no  violence  or  penal 
ties  on  persons  (as  is  claimed  here  for  the  accused),  without  first  obtaining  the  verdict 
of  juries  and  the  judgment  of  civil  courts,  then  is  this  legislation  a  mockery,  and  the 
Constitution,  which  not  only  authorized  but  enjoined  its  enactment,  but  a  glittering 
generality  and  a  splendid  bauble.  Happily,  the  Supreme  Court  has  settled  all  contro 
versy  on  this  question.  In  speaking  of  the  Rhode  Island  insurrection,  the  court  say:  — 

"The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  far  as  it  has  provided  for  an  emergency 
of  this  kind  and  authorized  the  general  government  to  interfere  in  the  domestic  con 
cerns  of  a  State,  has  treated  the  subject  as  political  in  its  nature  and  placed  the  power 
in  the  hands  of  that  department."  .  .  .  "  By  the  act  of  1795  the  power  of  decid 
ing  whether  the  exigency  has  arisen  upon  which  the  government  of  the  United  States 
is  bound  to  interfere  is  given  to  the  President." 

The  court  add :  — 

"  When  the  President  has  acted  and  called  out  the  militia,  is  a  circuit  court  of  the 
United  States  authorized  to  inquire  whether  his  decision  was  right?  If  it  could,  then 
it  would  become  the  duty  of  the  court,  provided  it  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
President  had  decided  incorrectly,  to  discharge  those  who  were  arrested  or  detained  by 
the  troops  in  the  service  of  the  United  States."  .  .  .  "If  the  judicial  power 
extends  so  far,  the  guarantee  contained  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  a 
guarantee  of  anarchy  and  not  of  order."  ..."  Yet  if  this  right  does  not  reside 
in  the  courts  when  the  conflict  is  raging,  if  the  judicial  power  is  at  that  time  bound  to 
follow  the  decision  of  the  political,  it  must  be  equally  bound  when  the  contest  is  over. 
It  cannot,  when  peace  is  restored,  punish  as  offenses  and  crimes  the  acts  which  it 
before  recognized  and  was  bound  to  recognize  as  lawful."  —  Luther  vs.  Borden,  7 
Howard,  42,  43. 

If  this  be  law,  what  becomes  of  the  volunteer  advice  of  the  volunteer  counsel,  by 
him  given  without  money  and  without  price,  to  this  court,  of  their  responsibility  — 
their  personal  responsibility,  for  obeying  the  orders  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  in  trying  persons  accused  of  the  murder  of  the  Chief  Magistrate  and  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  rebellion,  and 
in  pursuance  of  a  conspiracy  entered  into  with  the  public  enemy?  I  may  be  pardoned 
for  asking  the  attention  of  the  court  to  a  further  citation  from  this  important  decision, 
in  which  the  court  say,  the  employment  of  military  power  to  put  down  an  armed  insur 
rection  "is  essential  to  the  existence  of  every  government,  and  is  as  necessary  to  the 
States  of  this  Union  as  to  any  other  government;  and  if  the  government  of  the  State 
deem  the  armed  opposition  so  formidable  as  to  require  the  use  of  military  force  and 
the  declaration  of  MARTIAL  LAW,  we  see  no  ground  upon  which  this  court  can  question 
its  authority"  {Ibid}.  This  decision  in  terms  declared  that  under  the  act  of  1795 
the  President  had  power  to  decide  and  did  decide  the  question  so  as  to  exclude  further 
inquiry  whether  the  State  government  which  thus  employed  force  and  proclaimed 
martial  law  was  the  government  of  the  State,  and  therefore  was  permitted  to  act.  If 


APPENDIX.  3  5  I 

a  State  may  do  this  to  put  down  armed  insurrection,  may  not  the  federal  government 
as  well?  The  reason  of  the  man  who  doubts  it  may  justly  be  questioned.  I  but  quote 
the  language  of  that  tribunal,  in  another  case  before  cited,  when  I  say  the  Constitution 
•confers  upon  the  President  the  whole  executive  power. 

We  have  seen  that  the  proclamation  of  blockade  made  by  the  President  was 
affirmed  by  the  Supreme  Court  as  a  lawful  and  valid  act,  although  its  direct  effect  was 
to  dispose  of  the  property  of  whoever  violated  it,  whether  citizen  or  stranger.  It  is 
difficult  to  perceive  what  course  of  reasoning  can  be  adopted,  in  the  light  of  that 
decision,  which  will  justify  any  man  in  saying  that  the  President  had  not  the  like 
power  to  proclaim  martial  law  in  time  of  insurrection  against  the  United  States,  and  to 
establish,  according  to  the  customs  of  war  among  civilized  nations,  military  tribunals 
of  justice  for  its  enforcement  and  for  the  punishment  of  all  crimes  committed  in  the 
interests  of  the  public  enemy. 

These  acts  of  the  President  have,  however,  all  been  legalized  by  the  subsequent 
legislation  of  Congress,  although  the  Supreme  Court  decided,  in  relation  to  the  procla 
mation  of  blockade,  that  no  such  legislation  was  necessary.  By  the  act  of  August  6, 
1861,  ch.  63,  sec.  3,  it  is  enacted  that  — 

"All  the  acts,  proclamations,  and  orders  of  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
after  the  4th  of  March,  i86>,  respecting  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  and 
calling  out,  or  relating  to,  the  militia  or  volunteers  from  the  States,  are  hereby  approved 
in  all  respects,  legalized,  and  made  valid  to  the  same  extent  and  with  the  same  effect 
as  if  they  had  been  issued  and  done  under  the  previous  express  authority  and  direc- 
ion  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States."  —  12  Statutes  at  Large,  326. 

This  act  legalized,  if  any  such  legalization  was  necessary,  all  that  the  President  had 
done  from  the  day  of  his  inauguration  to  that  hour,  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  for 
the  Union.  He  had  suspended  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  resisted 
its  execution  when  issued  by  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States;  he  had  called  out 
and  accepted  the  services  of  a  large  body  of  volunteers  for  a  period  not  previously 
authorized  by  law;  he  had  declared  a  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports;  he  had  declared 
the  Southern  States  in  insurrection;  he  had  ordered  the  armies  to  invade  them  and 
suppress  it;  thus  exercising,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  war,  power  over  the  life, 
the  liberty,  and  the  property  of  the  citizens.  Congress  ratified  it  and  affirmed  it. 

In  like  manner  and  by  subsequent  legislation  did  the  Congress  ratify  and  affirm  the 
proclamation  of  martial  law  of  September  25,  1862.  That  proclamation,  as  the  court 
will  have  observed,  declares  that  during  the  existing  insurrection  all  rebels  and  insur 
gents,  their  aiders  and  abettors  within  the  United  States,  and  all  persons  guilty  of  any 
disloyal  practice  affording  aid  and  comfort  to  the  rebels  against  the  authority  of  the 
United  States,  shall  be  subject  to  martial  law  and  liable  to  trial  and  punishment  by 
courts-martial  or  military  commission ;  and  second,  that  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  is 
suspended  in  respect  to  all  persons  arrested,  or  who  are  now,  or  hereafter  during  the 
rebellion  shall  be,  imprisoned  in  any  fort,  etc.,  by  any  military  authority,  or  by  the 
sentence  of  any  court-martial  or  military  commission. 

One  would  suppose  that  it  needed  no  argument  to  satisfy  an  intelligent  and  patriotic 
citizen  of  the  United  States  that,  by  the  ruling  of  the  Supreme  Court  cited,  so  much  of 
this  proclamation  as  declares  that  all  rebels  and  insurgents,  their  aiders  and  abettors, 
shall  be  subject  to  martial  law  and  be  liable  to  trial  and  punishment  by  court-martial  or 
military  commission,  needed  no  ratification  by  Congress.  Every  step  that  the  President 
took  against  rebels  and  insurgents  was  taken  in  pursuance  of  the  rules  of  war  and  was 


3  5  2  APPENDIX. 

an  exercise  of  martial  law.  Who  says  that  he  should  not  deprive  them,  by  the  author 
ity  of  this  law,  of  life  and  liberty?  Are  the  aiders  and  abettors  of  these  insurgents- 
entitled  to  any  higher  consideration  than  the  armed  insurgents  themselves?  It  is- 
against  these  that  the  President  proclaimed  martial  law,  and  against  all  others  who  were 
guilty  of  any  disloyal  practice  affording  aid  and  comfort  to  rebels  against  the  authority 
of  the  United  States.  Against  these  he  suspended  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  ;  and  these,  and  only  such  as  these,  were  by  that  proclamation  subjected  to  trial 
and  punishment  by  court-martial  or  military  commission. 

That  the  Proclamation  covers  the  offense  charged  here,  no  man  will,  or  dare,  for  a 
moment  deny.  Was  it  not  a  disloyal  practice?  Was  it  not  aiding  and  abetting  the 
insurgents  and  rebels  to  enter  into  a  conspiracy  with  them  to  kill  and  murder,  within 
your  capital  and  your  intrenched  camp,  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  our  army,  your 
Lieutenant  General,  and  the  Vice-President,  and  the  Secretary  of  State,  with  intent 
thereby  to  aid  the  rebellion,  and  subvert  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United 
States?  But  it  is  said  that  the  President  could  not  establish  a  court  for  their  trial,  and 
therefore  Congress  must  ratify  and  affirm  this  Proclamation.  I  have  said  before  that 
such  an  argument  comes  with  ill  grace  from  the  lips  of  him  who  declared  as  solemnly 
that  neither  by  the  Congress  nor  by  the  President  could  either  the  rebel  himself  or  his 
aider  or  abettor  be  lawfully  and  constitutionally  subjected  -to  trial  by  any  military  tribu 
nal,  whether  court-martial  or  military  commission.  But  the  Congress  did  ratify,  in  the 
exercise  of  the  power  vested  in  them,  every  part  of  this  Proclamation.  I  have  said,, 
upon  the  authority  of  the  fathers  of  the  Constitution,  and  of  its  judicial  interpreters, 
that  Congress  has  power  by  legislation  to  aid  the  Executive  in  the  suppression  of  rebel 
lion,  in  executing  the  laws  of  the  Union  when  resisted  by  armed  insurrection,  and  in 
repelling  invasion. 

By  the  act  of  March  3,  1863,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  by  the  first  section 
thereof,  declared  that  during  the  present  rebellion  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
whenever  in  his  judgment  the  public  safety  may  require  it,  is  authorized  to  suspend  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  any  case  throughout  the  United  States  or  any  part  thereof. 
By  the  fourth  section  of  the  same  act  it  is  declared  that  any  order  of  the  President,  or 
under  his  authority,  made  at  any  time  during  the  existence  of  the  present  rebellion,, 
shall  be  a  defense  in  all  courts  to  any  action  or  prosecution,  civil  or  criminal,  pend 
ing  or  to  be  commenced,  for  any  search,  seizure,  arrest,  or  imprisonment,  made,  done, 
or  committed,  or  acts  omitted  to  be  done,  under  and  by  virtue  of  such  order.  By  the 
fifth  section  it  is  provided  that,  if  any  suit  or  prosecution,  civil  or  criminal,  has  been  or 
shall  be  commenced  in  any  State  court  against  any  officer,  civil  or  military,  or  against 
any  other  person,  for  any  arrest  or  imprisonment  made,  or  other  trespasses  or  wrongs 
done  or  committed,  or  any  act  omitted  to  be  done  at  any  time  during  the  present  rebel 
lion,  by  virture  of  or  under  color  of  any  authority  derived  from  or  exercised  by  or 
under  the  President  of  the  United  States,  if  the  defendant  shall,  upon  appearance  in 
such  court,  file  a  petition  stating  the  facts  upon  affidavit,  etc.,  as  aforesaid,  for  the 
removal  of  the  cause  for  trial  to  the  circuit  court  of  the  United  States,  it  shall  be  the 
duty  of  the  State  court,  upon  his  giving  security,  to  proceed  no  further  in  the  cause  or 
prosecution;  thus  declaring  that  all  orders  of  the  President,  made  at  any  time  during 
the  existence  of  the  present  rebellion,  and  all  acts  done  in  pursuance  thereof,  shall  be 
held  valid  in  the  courts  of  justice.  Without  further  inquiry,  these  provisions  of  this 
statute  embrace  Order  141,  which  is  the  proclamation  of  martial  law,  and  necessarily 
legalize  every  act  done  under  it,  either  before  the  passage  of  the  act  of  1863  or  since. 


APPENDIX.  353 

Inasmuch  as  that  Proclamation  ordered  that  all  rebels,  insurgents,  their  aiders  and 
abettors,  and  persons  guilty  of  any  disloyal  practice  affording  aid  and  comfort  to  rebels^ 
against  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  at  any  time  during  the  existing  insurrection,, 
should  be  subject  to  martial  law,  and  liable  to  trial  and  punishment  by  a  military  coin- 
mission^  the  sections  of  the  law  just  cited  declaring  lawful  all  acts  clone  in  pursuance 
of  such  order,  including,  of  course,  the  trial  and  punishment  by  military  commission 
of  all  such  offenders,  as  directly  legalized  this  order  of  the  President  as  it  is  possible 
for  Congress  to  legalize  or  authorize  any  executive  act  whatever.  — 12  Statutes  at_ 
Large,  755,  756. 

But  after  assuming  and  declaring  with  great  earnestness  in  his  argument  that  no- 
person  could  be  tried  and  convicted  for  such  crimes  by  any  military  tribunal,  whether  a 
court-martial  or  a  military  commission,  save  those  in  the  land  or  naval  service  in  time 
of  war,  the  gentleman  makes  the  extraordinary  statement  that  the  creation  of  a  military 
commission  must  be  authorized  by  the  legislative  department,  and  demands,  if  there  be 
any  such  legislation,  "  let  the  statute  be  produced."  The  statute  has  been  produced. 
The  power  so  to  try,  says  the  gentleman,  must  be  authorized  by  Congress,  when  the 
demand  is  made  for  such  authority.  Does  not  the  gentleman  thereby  give  up  his  argu 
ment,  and  admit,  that  if  the  Congress  has  so  authorized  the  trial  of  all  aiders  and 
abettors  of  rebels  or  insurgents  for  whatever  they  do  in  aid  of  such  rebels  and  insur 
gents  during  the  insurrection,  the  statute  and  proceedings  under  it  are  lawful  and  valid? 
I  have  already  shown  that  the  Congress  have  so  legislated  by  expressly  legalizing  Order 
No.  141,  which  directed  the  trial  of  all  rebels,  their  aiders  and  abettors,  by  military 
commission.  Did  not  Congress  expressly  legalize  this  order  by  declaring  that  the  order 
shall  be  a  defense  in  all  courts  to  any  action  or  prosecution,  civil  or  criminal,  for  acts 
done  in  pursuance  of  it?  No  amount  of  argument  could  make  this  point  clearer  than 
the  language  of  the  statute  itself.  But,  says  the  gentleman,  if  there  be  a  statute  author 
izing  trials  by  military  commission,  "  let  it  be  produced." 

By  the  act  of  March  3,  1863,  it  is  provided  in  section  thirty  that  in  time  of  war, 
insurrection,  or  rebellion,  murder  and  assault  with  intent  to  kill,  etc.,  when  committed 
by  persons  in  the  military  service,  shall  be  punishable  by  the  sentence  of  a  court-martial 
or  military  commission,  and  the  punishment  of  such  offenses  shall  never  be  less  th?n 
those  inflicted  by  the  laws  of  the  State  or  district  in  which  they  may  have  been  com 
mitted.  By  the  thirty-eighth  section  of  the  same  act  it  is  provided  that  all  persons- 
who,  in  time  of  war  or  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  found  lurking  or 
acting  as  spies  in  or  about  the  camps,  etc.,  of  the  United  States,  or  elsewhere,  shall  be 
triable  by  a  military  commission,  and  shall,  upon  conviction,  suffer  death.  Here  is  a 
statute  which  expressly  declares  that  all  persons,  whether  citizens  or  strangers,  who  in. 
time  of  rebellion  shall  be  found  acting  as  spies,  shall  suffer  death  upon  conviction  by  a 
military  commission.  Why  did  not  the  gentleman  give  us  some  argument  upon  this 
law?  We  have  seen  that  it  was  the  existing  law  of  the  United  States  under  the  Con 
federation.  Then,  and  since,  men  not  in  the  land  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States 
have  suffered  death  for  this  offense  upon  conviction  by  courts-martial.  If  it  was  com 
petent  for  Congress  to  authorize  their  trial  by  courts-martial,  it  was  equally  competent 
for  Congress  to  authorize  their  trial  by  military  commission,  and  accordingly  they  have- 
done  so.  By  the  same  authority  the  Congress  may  extend  the  jurisdiction  of  military- 
commissions  over  all  military  offenses  or  crimes  committed  in  time  of  rebellion  or  war 
in  aid  of  the  public  enemy;  and  it  certainly  stands  with  right  reason,  that  if  it  were 
just  to  subject  to  death,  by  the  sentence  of  a  military  commission,  all  persons  who» 


354  APPENDIX. 

should  be  guilty  merely  of  lurking  as  spies  in  the  interests  of  the  public  enemy  in  time 
of  rebellion,  though  they  obtained  no  information,  though  they  inflicted  no  personal 
injury,  but  were  simply  overtaken  and  detected  in  the  endeavor  to  obtain  intelligence 
for  the  enemy,  those  who  enter  into  conspiracy  with  the  enemy,  not  only  to  lurk  as 
spies  in  your  camp,  but  to  lurk  there  as  murderers  and  assassins,  and  who,  in  pursuance 
of  that  conspiracy,  commit  assassination  and  murder  upon  the  Commander-in-Chief  of 
your  army  within  your  camp  and  in  aid  of  rebellion,  should  be  subject  in  like  manner 
to  trial  by  military  commission.  —  Statutes  at  Large  12,  736,  737,  ch.  8. 

Accordingly,  the  President  having  so  declared,  the  Congress,  as  we  have  stated, 
have  affirmed  that  his  order  was  valid,  and  that  all  persons  acting  by  authority,  and 
consequently  as  a  court  pronouncing  such  sentence  upon  the  offender  as  the  usage  of 
war  requires,  are  justified  by  the  law  of  the  land.  With  all  respect,  permit  me  to  say 
that  the  learned  gentleman  has  manifested  more  acumen  and  ability  in  his  elaborate 
argument  by  what  he  has  omitted  to  say  than  by  anything  which  he  has  said.  By  the 
act  of  July  2,  1864,  cap.  215,  it  is  provided  that  the  commanding  general  in  the  field, 
or  the  commander  of  the  department,  as  the  case  may  be,  shall  have  power  to  carry 
into  execution  all  sentences  against  guerilla  marauders  for  robbery,  arson,  burglary, 
etc.,  and  for  violation  of  the  laws  and  customs  of  war,  as  well  as  sentences  against 
spies,  mutineers,  deserters,  and  murderers. 

From  the  legislation  I  have  cited,  it  is  apparent  that  military  commissions  are 
expressly  recognized  by  the  law-making  power;  that  they  are  authorized  to  try  capital 
offenses  against  citizens  not  in  the  service  of  the  United  States,  and  to  pronounce  the 
sentence  of  death  upon  them;  and  that  the  commander  of  a  department,  or  the  com 
manding  general  in  the  field,  may  carry  such  sentence  into  execution.  But,  says  the 
gentleman,  grant  all  this  to  be  so;  Congress  has  not  declared  in  what  manner  the  court 
shall  be  constituted.  The  answer  to  that  objection  has  already  been  anticipated  in  the 
citation  from  Benet,  wherein  it  appeared  to  be  the  rule  of  the  law  martial  that  in  the 
punishment  of  all  military  offenses  not  provided  for  by  the  written  law  of  the  land, 
military  commissions  are  constituted  for  that  purpose  by  the  authority  of  the  command 
ing  officer  or  the  Commander-in-Chief,  as  the  case  may  be,  who  selects  the  officers  of  a 
court-martial;  that  they  are  similarly  constituted,  and  their  proceedings  conducted 
according  to  the  same  general  rules.  That  is  a  part  of  the  very  law  martial  which  the 
President  proclaimed,  and  which  the  Congress  has  legalized.  The  Proclamation  has 
declared  that  all  such  offenders  shall  be  tried  by  military  commissions.  The  Congress 
has  legalized  the  same  by  the  act  which  I  have  cited;  and  by  every  intendment  it  must 
be  taken  that,  as  martial  law  is  by  the  Proclamation  declared  to  be  the  rule  by  which 
they  shall  be  tried,  the  Congress,  in  affirming  the  act  of  the  President,  simply  declared 
that  they  should  be  tried  according  to  the  customs  of  martial  law;  that  the  commission 
should  be  constituted  by  the  Commander-in-Chief  according  to  the  rule  of  procedure 
known  as  martial  law;  and  that  the  penalties  inflicted  should  be  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  war  and  the  usages  of  nations.  Legislation  no  more  definite  than  this  has  been 
upon  your  statute-book  since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and  has  been  held  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  valid  for  the  punishment  of  offenders. 

By  the  thirty-second  article  of  the  act  of  230!  April,  1800,  it  is  provided  that  "all 
crimes  committed  by  persons  belonging  to  the  navy  which  are  not  specified  in  the  fore 
going  articles  shall  be  punished  according  to  the  laws  and  customs  in  such  cases  at  sea." 
Of  this  article  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  say,  that  when  offences  and  crimes 
are  not  given  in  terms  or  by  definition,  the  want  of  it  may  be  supplied  by  a  compre- 


APPENDIX.  355 

hensive  enactment  such  as  the  thirty-second  article  of  the  rules  for  the  government  of  the 
navy;  which  means  that  courts-martial  have  jurisdiction  of  such  crimes  as  are  not 
specified,  but  which  have  been  recognized  to  be  crimes  and  offenses  by  the  usages  in 
the  navies  of  all  nations,  and  that  they  shall  be  punished  according  to  the  laws  and 
customs  of  the  sea. —  Dynes  vs.  Hoover,  20  Howard,  82. 

But  it  is  a  fact  that  must  not  be  omitted  in  the  reply  which  I  make  to  the  gentle 
man's  argument,  that  an  effort  was  made  by  himself  and  others  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  on  the  3d  of  March  last,  to  condemn  the  arrests,  imprisonments,  etc., 
made  by  order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  pursuance  of  his  Proclamation, 
and  to  reverse,  by  the  judgment  of  that  body,  the  law  which  had  been  before  passed 
affirming  his  action,  which  effort  most  signally  failed. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  body  which  by  the  Constitution,  if  the  President  had  been 
guilty  of  the  misdemeanors  alleged  against  him  in  this  argument  of  the  gentleman, 
would,  upon  presentation  of  such  charge  in  legal  form  against  the  President,  constitute 
the  high  court  of  impeachment  for  his  trial  and  condemnation,  has  decided  the  question 
in  advance,  and  declared  upon  the  occasion  referred  to,  as  they  had  before  declared  by 
solemn  enactment,  that  this  order  of  the  President  declaring  martial  law  and  the  pun 
ishment  of  all  rebels  and  insurgents,  their  aiders  and  abettors,  by  military  commission, 
should  be  enforced  during  the  insurrection,  as  the  law  of  the  land,  and  that  the 
offenders  should  be  tried,  as  directed,  by  military  commission.  It  may  be  said  that  this 
subsequent  legislation  of  Congress,  ratifying  and  affirming  what  had  been  done  by  the 
President,  can  have  no  validity.  Of  course  it  cannot  if  neither  the  Congress  nor  the 
Executive  can  authorize  the  proclamation  and  enforcement  of  martial  law  in  the  sup 
pression  of  rebellion  for  the  punishment  of  all  persons  committing  military  offenses  in 
aid  of  that  rebellion.  Assuming,  however,  as  the  gentleman  seemed  to  assume,  by 
asking  for  the  legislation  of  Congress,  that  there  is  such  power  in  Congress,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  solemnly  affirmed  that  such  ratification  is  valid. 
—  2  Black,  671. 

The  gentleman's  argument  is  full  of  citations  of  English  precedent.  There  is  a  late 
English  precedent  bearing  upon  this  point  —  the  power  of  the  legislature,  by  subse 
quent  enactment,  to  legalize  executive  orders,  arrests,  and  imprisonment  of  citizens  — 
that  I  beg  leave  to  commend  to  his  consideration.  I  refer  to  the  statute  of  II  and  12 
Victoria,  ch.  35,  entitled  "  An  act  to  empower  the  lord  lieutenant,  or  other  chief  gov 
ernor  or  governors  of  Ireland,  to  apprehend  and  detain  until  the  first  day  of  March, 
1849,  such  persons  as  he  or  they  shall  suspect  of  conspiring  against  her  Majesty's  person 
and  government,"  passed  July  25,  1848,  which  statute  in  terms  declares  that  all  and 
every  person  and  persons  who  is,  are,  or  shall  be,  within  that  period,  within  that  part 
of  the  United  Kingdom  of  England  and  Ireland  called  Ireland  at  or  on  the  day  the  act 
shall  receive  her  Majesty's  royal  assent,  or  after,  by  warrant  for  high  treason  or  treason 
able  practices,  or  suspicion  of  high  treason  or  treasonable  practices,  signed  by  the  lord 
lieutenant,  or  other  chief  governor  or  governors  of  Ireland  for  the  time  being,  or  his  or 
their  chief  secretary,  for  such  causes  as  aforesaid,  may  be  detained  in  safe  custody 
without  bail  or  main  prize,  until  the  first  day  of  March,  1849;  and  that  no  judge  or 
justice  shall  bail  or  try  any  such  person  or  persons  so  committed,  without  order  from 
her  Majesty's  privy  council,  until  the  said  first  day  of  March,  1849,  any  law  or  statute 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  The  second  section  of  this  act  provides  that,  in  cases 
where  any  persons  have  been,  before  the  passing  of  the  act,  arrested,  committed,  or 
detained  for  such  cause  by  warrant  or  warrants  signed  by  the  officers  aforesaid,  or 


356  APPENDIX. 

either  of  them,  it  may  be  lawful  for  the  person  or  persons  to  whom  such  warrants  have 
been  or  shall  be  directed,  to  detain  such  person  or  persons  in  his  or  their  custody  in  any 
place  whatever  in  Ireland;  and  that  such  person  or  persons  to  whom  such  warrants 
have  been  or  shall  be  directed  shall  be  deemed  and  taken,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
lawfully  authorized  to  take  into  safe  custody  and  be  the  lawful  jailers  and  keepers  of 
such  persons  so  arrested,  committed,  or  detained. 

Here  the  power  of  arrest  is  given  by  the  act  of  Parliament  to  the  governor  or  his 
secretary;  the  process  of  the  civil  courts  was  wholly  suspended;  bail  was  denied  and 
the  parties  imprisoned,  and  this  not  by  process  of  the  courts,  but  by  warrant  of  a 
chief  governor  or  his  secretary;  not  for  crimes  charged  to  have  been  committed,  but 
for  being  suspected  of  treasonable  practices.  Magna  Charta,  it  seems,  opposes  no 
restraint,  notwithstanding  the  parade  that  is  made  about  it  in  this  argument,  upon  the 
power  of  the  Parliament  of  England  to  legalize  arrests  and  imprisonments  made  before 
the  passage  of  the  act  upon  an  executive  order,  and  without  colorable  authority  of 
statute  law,  and  to  authorize  like  arrests  and  imprisonments  of  so  many  of  six  million  of 
people  as  such  executive  officers  might  suspect  of  treasonable  practices. 

But,  says  the  gentleman,  whatever  may  be  the  precedents,  English  or  American, 
whatever  may  be  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  whatever  may  be  the  legislation  of 
Congress,  whatever  may  be  the  proclamations  and  orders  of  the  President  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief,  it  is  a  usurpation  and  a  tyranny  in  time  of  rebellion  and  civil  war  to 
subject  any  citizen  to  trial  for  any  crime  before  military  tribunals,  save  such  citizens  as 
are  in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  and  against  this  usurpation,  which  he  asks  this  court  to 
rebuke  by  solemn  decision,  he  appeals  to  public  opinion.  I  trust  that  I  set  as  high 
value  upon  enlightened  public  opinion  as  any  man.  I  recognize  it  as  the  reserved  power 
of  the  people  which  creates  and  dissolves  armies,  which  creates  and  dissolves  legislative 
assemblies,  which  enacts  and  repeals  fundamental  laws,  the  better  to  provide  for  per 
sonal  security  by  the  due  administration  of  justice.  To  that  public  opinion  upon  this 
very  question  of  the  usurpation  of  authority,  of  unlawful  arrests,  and  unlawful  imprison 
ments,  and  unlawful  trials,  condemnations,  and  executions  by  the  late  President  of  the 
United  States,  an  appeal  has  already  been  taken.  On  this  very  issue  the  President  was 
tried  before  the  tribunal  of  the  people,  that  great  nation  of  freemen  who  cover  this  con 
tinent,  looking  out  upon  Europe  from  their  eastern  and  upon  Asia  from  their  western 
homes.  That  people  came  to  the  consideration  of  this  issue  not  unmindful  of  the  fact 
that  the  first  struggle  for  the  establishment  of  our  nationality  could  not  have  been,  and 
was  not,  successfully  prosecuted  without  the  proclamation  and  enforcement  of  martial 
law,  declaring,  as  we  have  seen,  that  any  inhabitant  who,  during  that  war,  should 
kill  any  loyal  citizen,  or  enter  into  any  combination  for  that  purpose,  should,  upon  trial 
and  conviction  before  a  military  tribunal,  be  sentenced  as  an  assassin,  traitor,  or  spy, 
and  should  suffer  death,  and  that  in  this  last  struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  American 
nationality  the  President  but  followed  the  example  of  the  illustrious  Father  of  his 
Country.  Upon  that  issue  the  people  passed  judgment  on  the  8th  day  of  last  Nov 
ember,  and  declared  that  the  charge  of  usurpation  was  false. 

From  this  decision  of  the  people  there  lies  no  appeal  on  this  earth.  Who  can  right 
fully  challenge  the  authority  of  the  American  people  to  decide  such  questions  for  them 
selves?  The  voice  of  the  people,  thus  solemnly  proclaimed,  by  the  omnipotence  of  the 
ballot  in  favor  of  the  righteous  order  of  their  murdered  President,  issued  by  him  for 
the  common  defense,  for  the  preservation  of  the  Constitution,  and  for  the  enforcement 
of  the  laws  of  the  Union,  ought  to  be  accepted,  and  will  be  accepted,  I  trust,  by  all 
just  men,  as  the  voice  of  God. 


APPENDIX.  357 

MAY  IT  PLEASE  THE  COURT  :  I  have  said  thus  much  touching  the  right  of  the  people, 
tinder  their  Constitution,  in  time  of  civil  war  and  rebellion,  to  proclaim  through  their 
Executive,  with  the  sanction  and  approval  of  their  Congress,  martial  law,  and  enforce 
the  same  according  to  the  usage  of  nations. 

I  submit  that  it  has  been  shown  that,  by  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  as 
-well  as  by  its  contemporaneous  construction,  followed  and  approved  by  every  depart 
ment  of  the  government,  this  right  is  in  the  people;  that  it  is  inseparable  from  the  con 
dition  of  war,  whether  civil  or  foreign,  and  absolutely  essential  to  its  vigorous  and 
successful  prosecution;  that  according  to  the  highest  authority  upon  constitutional  law, 
the  proclamation  and  enforcement  of  martial  law  are  "  usual  under  all  governments  in 
time  of  rebellion  ";  that  our  own  highest  judicial  tribunal  has  declared  this,  and  solemnly 
ruled  that  the  question  of  the  necessity  for  its  exercise  rests  exclusively  with  Congress  and 
the  President;  and  that  the  decision  of  the  political  departments  of  the  government, 
that  there  is  an  armed  rebellion  and  a  necessity  for  the  employment  of  military  force 
and  martial  law  in  its  suppression  concludes  the  judiciary. 

In  submitting  what  I  have  said  in  support  of  the  jurisdiction  of  this  honorable  court, 
and  of  its  constitutional  power  to  hear  and  determine  this  issue,  I  have  uttered  my  own 
•convictions;  and  for  their  utterance  in  defense  of  my  country,  and  its  right  to  employ 
all  the  means  necessary  for  the  common  defense  against  armed  rebellion  and  secret 
treasonable  conspiracy  in  aid  of  such  rebellion,  I  shall  neither  ask  pardon  nor  offer 
apology.  I  find  no  words  with  which  more  fitly  to  conclude  all  I  have  to  say  upon  the 
•question  of  the  jurisdiction  and  constitutional  authority  of  this  court  than  those  employed 
by  the  illustrious  Lord  Brougham  to  the  House  of  Peers  in  the  support  of  the  bill  before 
referred  to,  which  empowered  the  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and  his  deputies,  to 
apprehend  and  detain,  for  the  period  of  seven  months  or  more,  all  such  persons  within 
that  island  as  they  should  suspect oi  conspiracy  against  her  Majesty's  person  and  govern 
ment.  Said  that  illustrious  man:  "A  friend  of  liberty  I  have  lived,  and  such  will  I 
die;  nor  care  I  how  soon  the  latter  event  may  happen,  if  I  cannot  be  a  friend  of  liberty 
without  being  a  friend  of  traitors  at  the  same  time  —  a  protector  of  criminals  of  the 
deepest  dye  —  an  accomplice  of  foul  rebellion  and  of  its  concomitant,  civil  war,  with 
all  its  atrocities  and  all  its  fearful  consequences."  — Hansard's  Debates,  3d  series,  vol. 
100,  p.  635. 

MAY  IT  PLEASE  THE  COURT  :  It  only  remains  for  me  to  sum  up  the  evidence  and 
present  my  views  of  the  law  arising  upon  the  facts  in  the  case  on  trial.  The  questions 
of  fact  involved  in  the  issue  are :  — 

First,  did  the  accused,  or  any  two  of  them,  confederate  and  conspire  together  as 
charged  ?  and  — 

Second,  did  the  accused,  or  any  of  them,  in  pursuance  of  such  conspiracy,  and 
with  the  intent  alleged,  commit  either  or  all  of  the  several  acts  specified? 

If  the  conspiracy  be  established,  as  laid,  it  results  that  whatever  was  said  or  done 
by  either  of  the  parties  thereto,  in  the  furtherance  or  execution  of  the  common  design, 
is  the  declaration  or  act  of  all  the  other  parties  to  the  conspiracy;  and  this,  whether  the 
other  parties,  at  the  time  such  words  were  uttered  or  such  acts  done  by  their  confederates, 
were  present  or  absent  —  here,  within  the  intrenched  lines  of  your  capital,  or  crouching 
behind  the  intrenched  lines  of  Richmond,  or  awaiting  the  results  of  their  murderous 
plot  against  their  country,  its  Constitution  and  laws,  across  the  border,  under  the  shelter 
of  the  British  flag. 

The  declared  and  accepted  rule  of  law  in  cases  of  conspiracy  is  that  — 


358  APPENDIX. 

"  In  prosecutions  for  conspiracy  it  is  an  established  rule  that  where  several  persons 
are  proved  to  have  combined  together  for  the  same  illegal  purpose,  any  act  done  by 
one  of  the  party,  in  pursuance  of  the  original  concerted  plan,  and  in  reference  to  the 
common  object,  is,  in  the  contemplation  of  law  as  well  as  in  sound  reason,  the  act  of 
the  whole  party;  and,  therefore,  the  proof  of  the  act  will  be  evidence  against  any  of 
the  others  who  were  engaged  in  the  same  general  conspiracy,  without  regard  to  the 
question  whether  the  prisoner  is  proved  to  have  been  concerned  in  the  particular  trans 
action." —  Phillips  on  Evidence,  p.  210. 

The  same  rule  obtains  in  cases  of  treason:  "  If  several  persons  agree  to  levy  war, 
some  in  one  place  and  some  in  another,  and  one  party  do  actually  appear  in  arms,  this, 
is  a  levying  of  war  by  all,  as  well  those  who  were  not  in  arms  as  those  who  were,  if  it 
were  done  in  pursuance  of  the  original  concert,  for  those  who  made  the  attempt  were 
emboldened  by  the  confidence  inspired  by  the  general  concert,  and  therefore  these  par 
ticular  acts  are  in  justice  imputable  to  all  the  rest." —  I  East.,  Pleas  of  the  Crown, 
p.  97;  Roscoe,  84. 

In  Ex  parte  Bolivian  and  Szvartwout,  4  Cranch,  126,  Marshall,  Chief  Justice, 
rules:  "  If  war  be  actually  levied,  —  that  is,  if  a  body  of  men  be  actually  assembled, 
for  the  purpose  of  effecting,  by  force,  a  treasonable  purpose, — all  those  who  perform 
any  part,  however  minute,  or  however  remote  from  the  scene  of  action,  and  who  are 
actually  leagued  in  the  general  conspiracy,  are  to  be  considered  as  traitors." 

In  United  States  vs.  Cole  et  al,  5  McLean,  601,  Mr.  Justice  McLean  says:  "A 
conspiracy  is  rarely,  if  ever,  proved  by  positive  testimony.  When  a  crime  of  high 
magnitude  is  about  to  be  perpetrated  by  a  combination  of  individuals,  they  do  not  act 
openly  but  covertly  and  secretly.  The  purpose  formed  is  known  only  to  those  who 
enter  into  it.  Unless  one  of  the  original  conspirators  betray  his  companions  and  give 
evidence  against  them,  their  guilt  can  be  proved  only  by  circumstantial  evidence.  .  .  . 
It  is  said  by  some  writers  on  evidence  that  such  circumstances  are  stronger  than  positive 
proof.  A  witness  swearing  positively,  it  is  said,  may  misapprehend  the  facts  or  swear 
falsely,  but  that  circumstances  cannot  lie. 

"  The  common  design  is  the  essence  of  the  charge;  and  this  may  be  made  to  appear 
when  the  defendants  steadily  pursue  the  same  object,  whether  acting  separately  or 
together,  by  common  or  different  means,  all  leading  to  the  same  unlawful  result.  And 
where  prima  facie  evidence  has  been  given  of  a  combination,  the  acts  or  confessions 
of  one  are  evidence  against  all.  .  .  .  It  is  reasonable  that  where  a  body  of  men 
assume  the  attribute  of  individuality,  whether  for  commercial  business  or  for  the  com 
mission  of  a  crime,  that  the  association  should  be  bound  by  the  acts  of  one  of  its 
members  in  carrying  out  the  design." 

It  is  a  rule  of  the  law,  not  to  be  overlooked  in  this  connection,  that  the  conspiracy 
or  agreement  of  the  parties,  or  some  of  them,  to  act  in  concert  to  accomplish  the 
unlawful  act  charged,  may  be  established  either  by  direct  evidence  of  a  meeting  or 
consultation  for  the  illegal  purpose  charged,  or  more  usually,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  by  circumstantial  evidence.  —  2  Starkie,  232. 

Lord  Mansfield  ruled  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  prove  the  actual  fact  of  a  con 
spiracy,  but  that  it  might  be  collected  from  collateral  circumstances.  —  Parson's  Case, 
I  W.  Blackstone,  392. 

"If,"  says  a  great  authority  on  the  law  of  evidence,  "  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy, 
it  appear  that  two  persons  by  their  acts  are  pursuing  the  same  object,  and  often  by  the 
same  means,  or  one  performing  part  of  the  act  arid  the  other  completing  it,  for  the 


APPENDIX.  359 

attainment  of  the  same  object,  the  jury  may  draw  the  conclusion  there  is  a  conspiracy. 
If  a  conspiracy  be  formed,  and  a  person  join  in  it  afterwards,  he  is  equally  guilty  with 
the  original  conspirators."  —  Roscoe,  415. 

"The  rule  of  the  admissibility  of  the  acts  and  declarations  of  any  one  of  the  con 
spirators,  said  or  done  in  furtherance  of  the  common  design,  applies  in  cases  as  well 
where  only  part  of  the  conspirators  are  indicted  or  upon  trial  as  where  all  are  indicted 
and  upon  trial.  Thus,  upon  an  indictment  for  murder,  if  it  appear  that  others,  together 
with  the  prisoner,  conspired  to  commit  the  crime,  the  act  of  one,  done  in  pursuance  of 
that  intention,  will  be  evidence  against  the  rest."  — 2d  Starkie,  237. 

They  are  all  alike  guilty  as  principals.  —  Commonwealth  vs.  Knapp,  9  Pickering, 
496;  10  Pickering,  477;  6  Term  Reports,  528;  II  East.,  584. 

What  is  the  evidence,  direct  and  circumstantial,  that  the  accused,  or  either  of  them, 
together  with  John  H.  Surratt,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  Jefferson  Davis,  George  N.  Sanders, 
Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary,  Clement  C.  Clay,  George  Harper, 
and  George  Young,  did  combine,  confederate,  and  conspire,  in  aid  of  the  existing  rebel 
lion,  as  charged,  to  kill  and  murder,  within  the  military  department  of  Washington,  and 
within  the  fortified  and  intrenched  lines  thereof,  Abraham  Lincoln,  late,  and  at  the 
time  of  the  said  combining,  confederating,  and  conspiring,  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof;  Andrew 
Johnson,  Vice-President  of  the  United  States;  William  II.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State 
of  the  United  States;  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Lieutenant  General  of  the  armies  thereof, 
and  then  in  command,  under  the  direction  of  the  President? 

The  time,  as  laid  in  the  charge  and  specification,  when  this  conspiracy  was  entered 
into,  is  immaterial,  so  that  it  appear  by  the  evidence  that  the  criminal  combination  and 
agreement  were  formed  before  the  commission  of  the  acts  alleged.  That  Jefferson 
Davis,  one  of  the  conspirators  named,  was  the  acknowledged  chief  and  leader  of  the 
existing  rebellion  against  the  government  of  the  United  States,  and  that  Jacob  Thomp 
son,  George  N.  Sanders,  Clement  C.  Clay,  Beverly  Tucker,  and  others  named  in  the 
specification,  were  his  duly  accredited  and  authorized  agents  to  act  in  the  interests  of 
said  rebellion,  are  facts  established  by  the  testimony  in  this  case  beyond  all  question. 
That  Davis,  as  the  leader  of  said  rebellion,  gave  to  those  agents,  then  in  Canada,  com 
missions  in  blank,  bearing  the  official  signature  of  his  war  minister,  James  A.  Seddon, 
to  be  by  them  filled  up  and  delivered  to  such  agents  as  they  might  employ  to  act  in  the 
interests  of  the  rebellion  within  the  United  States,  and  intended  to  be  a  cover  and  pro 
tection  for  any  crimes  they  might  therein  commit  in  the  service  of  the  rebellion,  is  also 
a  fact  established  here,  and  which  no  man  can  gainsay.  Who  doubts  that  Kennedy, 
whose  confession  made  in  view  of  immediate  death,  as  proved  here,  was  commissioned 
by  those  accredited  agents  of  Davis  to  burn  the  city  of  New  York?  —  that  he  was  to 
have  attempted  it  on  the  night  of  the  presidental  election,  and  that  he  did,  in  combina 
tion  with  his  confederates,  set  fire  to  four  hotels  in  the  city  of  New  York  on  the  night 
of  the  25th  of  November  last?  Who  doubts  that,  in  like  manner,  in  the  interests  of  the 
rebellion  and  by  the  authority  of  Davis,  these  his  agents  also  commissioned  Bennett  H. 
Young  to  commit  arson,  robbery,  and  the  murder  of  unarmed  citizens,  in  St.  Albans, 
Vt.?  Who  doubts,  upon  the  testimony  shown,  that  Davis,  by  his  agents,  deliber 
ately  adopted  the  system  of  starvation  for  the  murder  of  our  captive  soldiers  in  his 
hands  ;  or  that,  as  shown  by  the  testimony,  he  sanctioned  the  burning  of  hospitals  and 
steamboats,  the  property  of  private  persons,  and  paid  therefor  from  his  stolen  treasure 
the  sum  of  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  in  gold?  By  the  evidence  of  Joseph  Godfrey 


360  APPENDIX. 

Ilyams  it  is  proved  that  Thompson,  the  agent  of  Jefferson  Davis,  paid  him  money 
for  the  service  he  rendered  in  the  infamous  and  fiendish  project  of  importing  pestilence 
into  our  camps  and  cities  to  destroy  the  lives  of  citizens  and  soldiers  alike,  and  into  the 
house  of  the  President  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  his  life.  It  may  be  said,  and 
doubtless  will  be  said,  by  the  pensioned  advocates  of  this  rebellion,  that  Ilyams,  being 
infamous,  is  not  to  be  believed.  It  is  admitted  that  he  is  infamous,  as  it  must  be  conceded 
that  any  man  is  infamous  who  either  participates  in  such  a  crime  or  attempts  in  any  wise 
to  extenuate  it.  But  it  will  be  observed  that  Ilyams  is  supported  by  the  testimony  of 
Mr.  Sanford  Conover,  who  heard  Blackburn  and  the  other  rebel  agents  in  Canada  speak 
of  this  infernal  project,  and  by  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Wall,  the  well-known  auctioneer 
of  this  city,  whose  character  in  unquestioned,  that  he  received  this  importation  of  pesti 
lence  (of  course  without  any  knowledge  of  the  purpose),  and  that  Ilyams  consigned 
the  goods  to  him  in  the  name  of  J.  W.  Harris,  a  fact  in  itself  an  acknowledgment  of 
guilt;  and  that  he  received  afterwards  a  letter  from  Harris,  dated  Toronto,  Canada 
West,  December  I,  1864,  wherein  Harris  stated  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  come  to 
the  States  since  his  return  to  Canada,  and  asked  for  an  account  of  the  sale.  He  identi 
fies  the  Godfrey  Joseph  Hyams  who  testified  in  court  as  the  J.  W.  Harris  who  imported 
the  pestilence.  The  very  transaction  shows  that  Ilyams's  statement  is  truthful.  He 
gives  the  names  of  the  parties  connected  with  this  infamy  (Clement  C.  Clay,  Dr. 
Blackburn,  Rev.  Dr.  Stuart  Robinson,  J.  C.  Holcombe  —  all  refugees  from  the  Con 
federacy  in  Canada),  and  states  that  he  gave  Thompson  a  receipt  for  the  fifty  dollars 
paid  to  him,  and  that  he  was  by  occupation  a  shoemaker;  in  none  of  which  facts  is 
there  an  attempt  to  discredit  him.  It  is  not  probable  that  a  man  in  his  position  in  life 
would  be  able  to  buy  five  trunks  of  clothing,  ship  them  all  the  way  from  Halifax  to 
Washington,  and  then  order  them  to  be  sold  at  auction,  without  regard  to  price,  solely 
upon  his  own  account.  It  is  a  matter  of  notoriety  that  a  part  of  his  statement  is  verified 
by  the  results  at  New  Berne,  N.C.,  to  which  point  he  says  a  portion  of  the  infected 
goods  were  shipped,  through  a  sutler;  the  result  of  which  was,  that  nearly  two  thou 
sand  citizens  and  soldiers  died  there  about  that  time  with  yellow  fever. 

That  the  rebel  chief,  Jefferson  Davis,  sanctioned  these  crimes,  committed  and 
attempted  through  the  instrumentality  of  his  accredited  agents  in  Canada  —  Thompson, 
Clay,  Tucker,  Sanders,  Cleary,  etc.,  —  upon  the  persons  and  property  of  the  people  of 
the  North,  their  is  positive  proof  on  your  record.  The  letter  brought  from  Richmond, 
and  taken  from  the  archives  of  his  late  pretended  government  there,  dated  February 
II,  1865,  and  addressed  to  him  by  the  late  rebel  senator  from  Texas,  W.  S.  Oldham, 
contains  the  following  significant  words:  "When  Senator  Johnson,  of  Missouri,  and 
myself  waited  on  you  a  few  days  since,  in  relation  to  the  project  of  annoying  and  har 
assing  the  enemy  by  means  of  burning  their  shipping,  towns,  etc.,  etc.,  there  were 
several  remarks  made  by  you  upon  the  subject  which  I  was  not  fully  prepared  to 
answer,  but  which,  upon  subsequent  conference  with  parties  proposing  the  enterprise, 
I  find  cannot  apply  as  objections  to  the  scheme.  First,  the  '  combustible  materials  ' 
consist  of  several  preparations,  and  not  one  alone,  and  can  be  used  without  exposing 
the  party  using  them  to  the  least  danger  of  detection  whatever.  .  .  .  Second, 
there  is  no  necessity  for  sending  persons  in  the  military  service  into  the  enemy's  coun 
try,  but  the  work  may  be  done  by  agents.  ...  I  have  seen  enough  of  the  effects 
that  can  be  produced  to  satisfy  me  that  in  most  cases,  without  any  danger  to  the  parties 
engaged,  and  in  others  but  very  slight,  we  can,  first,  burn  every  vessel  that  leaves  a 
foreign  port  for  the  United  States;  second,  we  can  burn  every  transport  that  leaves  the 


APPENDIX.  361 

harbor  of  New  York,  or  other  Northern  port,  with  supplies  for  the  armies  of  the  enemy 
in  the  South;  third,  burn  every  transport  and  gunboat  on  the  Mississippi  River,  as  well 
.as  devastate  the  country  of  the  enemy  and  fill  his  people  with  terror  and  consternation. 
For  the  purpose  of  satisfying  your  mind  upon  the  subject,  I  respectfully,  but 
•earnestly,  request  that  you  will  give  an  interview  with  General  Harris,  formerly  a 
member  of  Congress  from  Missouri,  who,  I  think,  is  able,  from  conclusive  proofs,  to 
convince  you  that  what  I  have  suggested  is  perfectly  feasible  and  practicable." 

No  one  can  doubt,  from  the  tenure  of  this  letter,  that  the  rebel  Davis  only  wanted 
to  be  satisfied  that  this  system  of  arson  and  murder  could  be  carried  on  by  his  agents 
in  the  North  successfully  and  without  detection.  With  him  it  was  not  a  crime  to  do 
these  acts,  but  only  a  crime  to  be  detected  in  them.  But  Uavis,  by  his  indorsement  on 
this  letter,  dated  the  2Oth  of  February,  1865,  bears  witness  to  his  own  complicity  and 
his  own  infamy  in  this  proposed  work  of  destruction  and  crime  for  the  future,  as  well 
as  to  his  complicity  in  what  had  before  been  attempted  without  complete  success.  Ken 
nedy,  with  his  confederates,  had  failed  to  burn  the  city  of  New  York.  "  The  combus 
tibles  "  which  Kennedy  had  employed  were,  it  seems,  defective.  This  was  "  a  difficulty 
to  be  overcome."  Neither  had  he  been  able  to  consummate  the  dreadful  work  without 
subjecting  himself  to  detection.  This  was  another  "  difficulty  to  be  overcome."  Davis, 
•on  the  2Oth  of  February,  1865,  indorsed  upon  this  letter  these  words:  "Secretary  of 
State,  at  his  convenience,  see  General  Harris  and  learn  what  plan  he  has  for  overcoming 
.the  difficulties  heretofore  experienced.  J.  D." 

This  indorsement  is  unquestionably  proved  to  be  the  handwriting  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  and  it  bears  witness  on  its  face  that  the  monstrous  proposition  met  his  approval, 
and  that  he  desired  his  rebel  Secretary  of  State,  Benjamin,  to  see  General  Harris  and 
learn  how  to  overcome  the  difficulty  heretofore  experienced,  to  wit :  the  inefficiency  of 
•"  the  combustible  materials  "  that  had  been  employed,  and  the  liability  of  his  agents  to 
•detection.  After  this,  who  will  doubt  that  he  had  endeavored,  by  the  hand  of  incen 
diaries,  to  destroy  by  fire  the  property  and  lives  of  the  people  of  the  North,  and  thereby 
"  fill  them  with  terror  and  consternation  "  ;  that  he  knew  his  agents  had  been  unsuc 
cessful;  that  he  knew  his  agents  had  been  detected  in  their  villainy  and  punished  for 
their  crime;  that  he  desired  through  a  more  perfect  "chemical  preparation,"  by  the 
science  and  skill  of  Professor  McCulloch,  to  accomplish  successfully  what  had  before 
been  unsuccessfully  attempted? 

The  intercepted  letter  of  his  agent,  Clement  C.  Clay,  dated  St.  Catherine's,  Canada 
West,  November  I,  1864,  is  an  acknowledgment  and  confession  of  what  they  had 
.attempted,  and  a  suggestion  made  through  J.  P.  Benjamin,  rebel  Secretary  of  State, 
of  what  remained  to  be  clone  in  order  to  make  the  "  chemical  preparations"  efficient. 
'Speaking  of  this  Bennett  II.  Young,  he  says:  "  You  have  doubtless  learned  through  the 
press  of  the  United  States  of  the  raid  on  St.  Albans  by  about  twenty-five  Confederate 
soldiers,  led  by  Lieut.  Bennett  II.  Young;  of  their  attempt  and  failure  to  burn  the  town; 
of  their  robbery  of  three  banks  there  of  the  aggregate  amount  of  about  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars;  of  their  arrest  in  Canada  by  United  States  forces;  of  their  commit 
ment  and  the  pending  preliminary  trial."  He  makes  application,  in  aid  of  Young  and  his 
-associates,  for  additional  documents,  showing  that  they  acted  upon  the  authority  of  the 
Confederate  States  government,  taking  care  to  say,  however,  that  he  held  such  author 
ity  at  the  time,  but  that  it  ought  to  be  more  explicit  so  far  as  regards  the  particular  acts 
complained  of.  He  states  that  he  met  Young  at  Halifax  in  May,  1864,  who  developed 
his  plans  for  retaliation  on  the  enemy;  that  he,  Clay,  recommended  him  to  the  rebel 


362 

Secretary  of  War;  that  after  this  "  Young  was  sent  back  by  the  Secretary  of  War  with 
a  commission  as  second  lieutenant  to  execute  his  plans  and  purposes,  but  to  report  io 

Hon.  and  myself."     Young  afterwards  "  proposed  passing  through  New  England, 

burning  some  towns  and  robbing  them  of  whatever  he  could  convert  to  the  use  of  the 
Confederate  government.  This  I  approved  as  justifiable  retaliation.  lie  attempted  to 
burn  the  town  of  St.  Albans,  Vt.,  and  would  have  succeeded  but  for  the  failure  of  the 
chemical  preparation  with  which  he  was  armed.  lie  then  robbed  the  banks  of  funds- 
amounting  to  over  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  That  he  was  not  prompted  by  selfish 
or  mercenary  motives  I  am  as  well  satisfied  as  I  am  that  he  is  an  honest  man.  He 
assured  me  before  going  that  his  effort  would  be  to  destroy  towns  and  farm-houses,  but 
not  to  plunder  or  rob;  but  he  said  if,  after  firing  a  town,  he  saw  he  could  take  funds 
from  a  bank  or  any  house,  and  thereby  might  inflict  injury  upon  the  enemy  and  benefit 
his  own  government,  he  would  do  so.  He  added  most  emphatically,  that  whatever  he 
took  should  be  turned  over  to  the  government  or  its  representatives  in  foreign  lands. 
My  instructions  to  him  were  to  destroy  whatever  was  valuable;  not  to  stop  to  rob,  but 
if,  after  firing  a  town,  he  could  seize  and  carry  off  money  or  treasury  or  bank  notes,  he 
might  do  so  upon  condition  that  they  were  delivered  to  the  proper  authorities  of  the 
Confederate  States  "  — that  is,  to  Clay  himself. 

When  he  wrote  this  letter  it  seems  that  this  accredited  agent  of  Jefferson  Davis  was 
as  strongly  impressed  with  the  usurpation  and  despotism  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  administra 
tion  as  some  of  the  advocates  of  his  aiders  and  abettors  seem  to  be  at  this  day;  and  he 
indulges  in  the  following  statement:  "All  that  a  large  portion  of  the  Northern  people, 
especially  in  the  northwest,  want  to  resist  the  oppressions  of  the  despotism  at  Washing 
ton  is  a  leader.  They  are  ripe  for  resistance,  and  it  may  come  soon  after  the  presidential 
election.  At  all  events,  it  must  come  if  our  armies  are  not  overcome,  or  destroyed,  or 
dispersed.  No  people  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  blood  can  long  endure  the  usurpations  and~ 
tyrannies  of  Lincoln.'1''  Clay  does  not  sign  the  despatch,  but  indorses  the  bearer  of  it 
as  a  person  who  can  identify  him  and  give  his  name.  The  bearer  of  that  letter  was  the 
witness  Richard  Montgomery,  who  saw  Clay  write  a  portion  of  the  letter,  and  received 
it  from  his  hands,  and  subsequently  delivered  it  to  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  War  of 
the  United  States,  Mr.  Dana.  That  the  letter  is  in  Clay's  handwriting  is  clearly  proved 
by  those  familiar  with  it.  Mr.  Montgomery  testifies  that  he  was  instructed  by  Clay  to 
deliver  this  letter  to  Benjamin,  the  rebel  Secretary  of  State,  if  he  could  get  through  to 
Richmond,  and  to  tell  him  what  names  to  put  in  the  blanks. 

This  letter  leaves  no  doubt,  if  any  before  existed  in  the  mind  of  any  one  who  had 
read  the  letter  of  Oldham  and  Davis's  indorsement  thereon,  that  "  the  chemical  prepa 
rations  "  and  "  combustible  materials  "  had  been  tried  and  had  failed,  and  it  had 
become  a  matter  of  great  moment  and  concern  that  they  should  be  so  prepared  as,  in 
the  words  of  Davis,  "  to  overcome  the  difficulties  heretofore  experienced  "  ;  that  is  to 
say,  complete  the  work  of  destruction,  and  secure  the  perpetrators  against  personal 
injury  or  detection  in  the  performance  of  it. 

It  only  remains  to  be  seen  whether  Davis,  the  procurer  of  arson  and  of  the  indis 
criminate  murder  of  the  innocent  and  unoffending  necessarily  resultant  therefrom,  was 
capable  also  of  endeavoring  to  procure,  and  in  fact  did  procure,  the  murder,  by  direct 
assassination,  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  others  charged  with  the  duty 
of  maintaining  the  government  of  the  United  States,  and  of  suppressing  the  rebellion 
in  which  this  arch-traitor  and  conspirator  was  engaged. 

The  official  papers  of  Davis,  captured  under  the  guns  of  our  victorious  army  in  his 


APPENDIX.  363 

rebel  capital,  identified  beyond  question  or  shadow  of  doubt,  and  placed  upon  your 
record,  together  with  the  declaration  and  acts  of  his  co-conspirators  and  agents,  proclaim 
to  all  the  world  that  he  was  capable  of  attempting  to  accomplish  his  treasonable  proc 
uration  of  the  murder  of  the  late  President,  and  other  chief  officers  of  the  United 
States,  by  the  hands  of  hired  assassins. 

In  the  fall  of  1864  Lieutenant  W.  Alston  addresses  to  "his  excellency"  a  letter 
now  before  the  court,  which  contains  the  following  words :  — 

"  I  now  offer  you  my  services,  and  if  you  will  favor  me  in  my  designs  I  will  proceed, 
as  soon  as  my  health  will  permit,  to  rid  my  country  of  some  of  her  deadliest  enemies, 
by  striking  at  the  very  hearts'1  blood  of  those  who  seek  to  enchain  her  in  slavery.  I  con 
sider  nothing  dishonorable  having  such  a  tendency.  All  I  ask  of  you  is,  to  favor  me  by 
granting  me  the  necessary  papers,  etc.,  to  travel  on.  .  /  am  perfectly  familiar 

with  the  North,  and  feel  confident  that  I  can  execute  anything  I  undertake.  I  was  in  the 
raid  last  June  in  Kentucky,  under  General  John  II.  Morgan;  .  .  .  was  taken  pris 
oner;  .  .  .  escaped  from  them  by  dressing  myself  in  the  garb  of  a  citizen.  .  .  . 
I  went  through  to  the  Canadas,  from  whence,  by  the  assistance  of  Colonel  J.  P.  Ilolcomb, 
I  succeeded  in  working  my  way  around  and  through  the  blockade.  ...  I  should 
like  to  have  a  personal  interview  with  you  in  order  to  perfect  the  arrangements  before 
starting." 

Is  there  any  room  to  doubt  that  this  was  a  proposition  to  assassinate^  by  the  hand 
of  this  man  and  his  associates,  such  persons  in  the  North  as  he  deemed  the  "  deadliest 
enemies"  of  the  rebellion?  The  weakness  of  the  man  who  for  a  moment  can  doubt 
that  such  was  the  proposition  of  the  writer  of  this  letter  is  certainly  an  object  of  com 
miseration.  What  had  Jefferson  Davis  to  say  to  this  proposed  assassination  of  the 
"  deadliest  enemies  "  in  the  North  of  his  great  treason?  Did  the  atrocious  suggestion 
kindle  in  him  indignation  against  the  villain  who  offered,  with  his  own  hand,  to  strike 
the  blow?  Not  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  he  ordered  his  private  secretary,  on  the  2Qth 
of  November,  1864,  to  endorse  upon  the  letter  these  words:  "  Lieutenant  W.  Alston; 
accompanied  raid  into  Kentucky,  and  was  captured,  but  escaped  into  Canada,  from 
whence  he  found  his  way  back.  Now  offers  his  services  to  rid  the  country  of  some  of 
its  deadliest  enemies;  asks  for  papers,  etc.  Respectfully  referred,  by  direction  of  the 
President,  to  the  honorable  Secretary  of  War."  It  is  also  indorsed,  for  attention,  "  by 
order.  (Signed)  J.  A.  Campbell,  Assistant  Secretary  of  War." 

Note  the  fact  in  this  connection,  that  Jefferson  Davis  himself,  as  well  as  his 
subordinates,  had,  before  the  date  of  this  indorsement,  concluded  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  "  the  deadliest  enemy  "  of  the  rebellion.  You  hear  it  in  the  rebel  camp 
in  Virginia,  in  1863,  declared  by  Booth,  then  and  there  present,  and  assented  to  by 
rebel  officers,  that  "  Abraham  Lincoln  must  be  killed."  You  hear  it  in  that  slaughter-pen 
in  Georgia  —  Andersonville  —  proclaimed  among  rebel  officers,  who,  by  the  slow  torture 
of  starvation,  inflicted  cruel  and  untimely  death  on  ten  thousand  of  your  defenders,  cap 
tives  in  their  hands  —  whispering,  like  demons,  their  horrid  purpose,  "  Abraham  Lincoln 
must  be  killed."  And  in  Canada,  the  accredited  agents  of  Jefferson  Davis,  as  early  as 
October,  1864,  and  afterwards,  declared  that  "  Abraham  Lincoln  must  be  killed  "  if 
his  re-election  could  not  be  prevented.  These  agents  in  Canada,  on  t"  *  1 3th  of 
October,  1864,  delivered,  in  cipher,  to  be  transmitted  to  Richmond  by  Richard  Mont 
gomery,  the  witness,  whose  reputation  is  unchallenged,  the  following  communication  :  — • 

"OCTOBER    13,   1864. 

"  We  again  urge  the  immense  necessity  of  our  gaining  immediate  advantages. 
Strain  every  nerve  for  victory.  We  now  look  upon  the  re-election  of  Lincoln  in 


364  APPENDIX. 

November  as  almost  certain,  and  we  need  to  whip  his  hirelings  to  prevent  it.  Besides, 
with  Lincoln  re-elected,  and  his  armies  victorious,  we  need  not  hope  even  for  recogni 
tion,  much  less  the  help  mentioned  in  our  last.  Holcomb  will  explain  this.  Those 
figures  of  the  Yankee  armies  are  correct  to  a  unit.  Our  friends  shall  be  immediately  set 
to  ivork  as  you  direct, ," 

To  which  an  official  reply,  in  cipher,  was  delivered  to  Montgomery  by  an  agent  of 
the  state  department  in  Richmond,  dated  October  19,  1864,  as  follows:  — 

"  Your  letter  of  the  I3th  instant  is  at  hand.  There  is  yet  time  enough  to  colonize 
many  voters  before  November.  A  blow  will  shortly  be  stricken  here.  It  is  not  quite 
time.  General  Longstreet  is  to  attack  Sheridan  without  delay,  and  then  move  north  as 
far  as  practicable  toward  unprotected  points.  This  will  be  made  instead  of  movement 
before  mentioned.  He  will  endeavor  to  assist  the  republicans  in  collecting  their  ballots. 
Be  watchful  and  assist  him." 

On  the  very  day  of  the  date  of  this  Richmond  despatch,  Sheridan  was  attacked,  with 
•what  success  history  will  declare.  The  court  will  not  fail  to  notice  that  the  re-election  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  is  to  be  prevented,  if  possible,  by  any  and  every  means.  Nor  will  they  fail 
to  notice  that  Holcombe  is  to  "  explain  this  "  —  the  same  person  who,  in  Canada,  was  the 
friend  and  advisor  of  Alston,  who  proposed  to  Davis  the  assassination  of  the  "  deadliest 
enemies  "  of  the  rebellion. 

In  the  despatch  of  the  1 3th  of  October,  which  was  borne  by  Montgomery,  and  trans 
mitted  to  Richmond  in  October  last,  you  will  find  these  words:  "  Our  friends  shall  be 
immediately  set  to  work  as  you  direct."  Mr.  Lincoln  is  the  subject  of  that  despatch. 
Davis  is  the'rein  notified  that  his  agents  in  Canada  look  upon  the  re-election  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  in  November  as  almost  certain.  In  this  connection  he  is  assured  by  those  agents 
that  ti\o.  friends  of  their  cause  are  to  be  set  to  work  as  Davis  had  directed.  The  con 
versations,  which  are  proved  by  witnesses  whose  character  stands  unimpeached,  disclose 
what  "  work  "  the  "  friends  "  were  to  do  under  the  direction  of  Davis  himself.  Who 
were  these  "  friends,"  and  what  was  "  the  work  "  which  his  agents,  Thompson,  Clay, 
Tucker,  and  Sanders,  had  been  directed  to  set  them  at?  Let  Thompson  answer  for  him 
self.  In  a  conversation  with  Richard  Montgomery  in  the  summer  of  1864,  Thompson 
said  that  he  "  had  his  friends,  confederates,  all  over  the  Northern  States,  who  were  ready 
and  willing  to  go  any  lengths  for  the  good  of  the  cause  of  the  South,  and  he  could  at  any 
time  have  the  tyrant  Lincoln  or  any  otJier  of  his  advisers  that  he  chose  put  out  of  his  way  ; 
that  they  would  not  consider  it  a  crime  when  done  for  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy." 
This  conversation  was  repeated  by  the  witness  in  the  summer  of  1864,  to  Clement  C. 
Clay,  who  immediately  stated:  "  That  is  so  ;  we  are  all  devoted  to  our  cause  a-nd  ready 
to  go  any  length  —  to  do  anything  under  the  sun." 

At  and  about  the  time  that  these  declarations  of  Clay  and  Thompson  were  made,  Alston, 
who  made  the  proposition,  as  we  have  seen,  to  Davis  to  be  furnished  with  papers  to  go 
north  and  rid  the  Confederacy  of  some  of  its  "  deadliest  enemies,"  was  in  Canada. 
He  was  doubtless  one  of  the  "  friends  "  referred  to.  As  appears  by  the  testimony  of 
Montgomery,  Payne,  the  prisoner  at  your  bar,  was  about  that  time  in  Canada,  and  was 
seen  standing  by  Thompson's  door,  engaged  in  a  conversation  with  Clay,  between  whom 
and  the  witness  some  words  were  interchanged,  when  Clay  stated  he  (Payne)  was  one 
•of  their  friends — "we  trust  him."  It  is  proved  beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt  that  in 
October  last  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin  of  the  President,  was  also  in  Canada,  and 
upon  intimate  terms  with  Thompson,  Clay,  Sanders,  and  other  rebel  agents.  Who  can 
doubt,  in  the  light  of  the  events  which  have  since  transpired,  that  he  was  one  of  the 


APPENDIX.  365 

"  friends  "  to  be  "  set  to  work,"  as  Davis  had  already  directed —  not,  perhaps,  as  yet 
to  assassinate  the  President,  but  to  do  that  other  work  which  is  suggested  in  the  letter 
of  Oldham,  indorsed  by  Davis  in  his  own  hand,  and  spread  upon  your  record  —  the 
work  of  a  secret  incendiary,  which  was  to  "  fill  the  people  of  the  North  with  terror  and 
consternation."  The  other  "work"  spoken  of  by  Thompson  —  putting  the  tyrant 
Lincoln  and  any  of  his  advisers  out  of  the  way  —  was  work  doubtless  to  be  commenced  only 
after  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  which  they  had  already  declared  in  their  despatch 
to  their  employer,  Davis,  was  with  them  a  foregone  conclusion.  At  all  events,  it  was 
not  until  after  the  presidental  election  in  November  that  Alston  proposed  to  Davis  to 
go  north  on  the  work  of  assassination  ;  nor  was  it  until  after  that  election  that  Booth  was 
found  in  possession  of  the  letter  which  is  in  evidence,  and  which  dicloses  the  purpose  to 
assassinate  the  President.  Being  assured,  however,  when  Booth  was  with  them  in  Canada, 
as  they  had  already  declared  in  their  despatch,  that  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
certain,  in  which  event  there  would  be  no  hope  for  the  Confederacy,  they  doubtless, 
entered  into  the  arrangement  with  Booth  as  one  of  their  "  friends,"  that  as  soon  as  that 
fact  was  determined  be  should  go  to  "  work,"  and  as  soon  as  might  be  "rid  the  Con 
federacy  of  the  tyrant  Lincoln  and  of  his  advisers." 

That  these  persons  named  upon  your  record,  — Thompson,  Sanders,  Clay,  Cleary,  and 
Tucker, — were  the  agents  of  Jefferson  Davis,  is  another  fact  established  in  this  case 
beyond  a  doubt.  They  made  affidavit  of  it  themselves,  of  record  here,  upon  the  exam 
ination  of  their  "  friends  "  charged  with  the  raid  upon  St.  Albans,  before  Judge  Smith, 
in  Canada.  It  is  in  evidence  also  by  the  letter  of  Clay,  before  referred  to. 

The  testimony  to  which  I  have  thus  briefly  referred  shows,  by  the  letter  of  his 
agents  of  the  I3th  of  October,  that  Davis  had  before  directed  those  agents  to  set  his. 
friends  to  iuork.  By  the  letter  of  Clay  it  seems  that  his  direction  had  been  obeyed,  and 
his  friends  had  been  set  to  work  in  the  burning  and  robbery  and  murder  at  St.  Albans, 
in  the  attempt  to  burn  the  city  of  New  York,  and  in  the  attempt  to  introduce  pestilence 
into  this  capital  and  into  the  house  of  the  President.  It  having  appeared,  by  the  letter 
of  Alston,  and  the  indorsement  thereon,  that  Davis  had  in  November  entertained  the 
proposition  of  sending  agents,  that  is  to  say  "  friends,"  to  the  North  to  not  only  "spread 
terror  and  consternation  among  the  people  "  by  means  of  his  "  chemical  preparations," 
but  also,  in  the  words  of  that  letter,  to  "  strike,"  by  the  hands  of  assassins,  "  at  the 
heart's  blood  "  of  the  deadliest  enemies  in  the  North  to  the  Confederacy  of  traitors; 
it  has  also  appeared  by  the  testimony  of  many  respectable  witnesses,  among  others  the 
attorneys  who  represented  the  people  of  the  United  States  and  the  State  of  Vermont,  in 
the  preliminary  trial  of  the  raiders  in  Canada,  that  Clay,  Thompson,  Tucker,  Sanders, 
and  Cleary  declared  themselves  the  agents  of  the  Confederacy.  It  also  clearly  appears 
by  the  correspondence  referred  to,  and  the  letter  of  Clay,  that  they  were  holding,  and 
at  any  time  able  to  command,  blank  commissions  from  Jefferson  Davis  to  authorize  their 
friends  to  do  whatever  work  they  appointed  them  to  do  in  the  interests  of  the  rebellion, 
by  the  destruction  of  life  and  property  in  the  North. 

If  &  prinia  facie  case  justifies,  as  we  have  seen  by  the  law  of  evidence  it  does,  the 
introduction  of  all  declarations  and  acts  of  any  of  the  parties  to  a  conspiracy,  uttered  or 
done  in  the  prosecution  of  the  common  design,  as  evidence  against  all  the  rest,  it  results 
that  whatever  was  said  or  done  in  furtherance  of  the  common  design,  after  this  month 
of  October,  1864,  by  either  of  these  agents  in  Canada,  is  evidence  not  only  against 
themselves,  but  against  Davis  as  well,  of  his  complicity  with  them  in  the  conspiracy. 

Mr.  Montgomery  testifies  that  he  met  Jacob  Thompson  in  January  at  Montreal,  when 


366  APPENDIX. 

he  said  that  ' '  a  proposition  had  been  made  to  him  to  rid  the  world  of  the  tyrant  Lin 
coln,  Stanton,  Grant,  and  some  others;  that  he  knew  the  men  who  had  made  the  prop 
osition  were  bold,  daring  men,  able  to  execute  what  they  undertook;  that  he  himself 
was  in  favor  of  the  proposition,  but  had  determined  to  defer  his  answer  until  he  had 
consulted  his  government  at  Richmond;  that  he  was  then  only  awaiting  their  approval." 
This  was  about  the  middle  of  January,  and  consequently  more  than  a  month  after  Alston 
had  made  his  proposition  direct  to  Davis,  in  writing,  to  go  north  and  rid  their  Confeder 
acy  of  some  of  its  "deadliest  enemies."  It  was  at  the  time  of  this  conversation  that 
Payne,  the  prisoner,  was  seen  by  the  witness  standing  at  Thompson's  door  in  conversa 
tion  with  Clay.  This  witness  also  shows  the  intimacy  between  Thompson,  Clay,  Cleary, 
Tucker,  and  Sanders. 

A  few  days  after  the  assassination  of  the  President,  Beverly  Tucker  said  to  this  witness 
"  that  President  Lincoln  deserved  his  death  long  ago;  that  it  was  a  pity  he  didn't  have 
it  long  ago,  and  it  was  too  bad  that  the  boys  had  not  been  allowed  to  act  when  they 
wanted  to." 

This  remark  undoubtedly  had  reference  to  the  propositions  made  in  the  fall  to 
Thompson,  and  also  to  Davis,  to  rid  the  South  of  its  deadliest  enemies  by  their  assassi 
nation.  Cleary,  who  was  accredited  by  Thompson  as  his  confidential  agent,  also  stated 
to  this  witness  that  Booth  was  one  of  the  party  to  whom  Thompson  had  referred  in  the 
conversation  in  January,  in  which  he  said  he  knew  the  men  who  were  ready  to  rid  the 
world  of  the  tyrant  Lincoln,  and  of  Stanton  and  Grant.  Cleary  also  said,  speaking  of 
the  assassination,  "that  it  was  a  pity  that  the  whole  work  had  not  been  done,"  and 
added,  "  they  had  better  look  out  —  we  are  not  done  yet  ";  manifestly  referring  to  the 
statement  made  by  his  employer,  Thompson,  before  in  the  summer,  that  not  only  the 
tyrant  Lincoln,  but  Stanton  and  Grant,  and  others  of  his  advisers,  should  be  put  out  of 
the  way.  Cleary  also  stated  to  this  witness  that  Booth  had  visited  Thompson  twice  in 
the  winter,  the  last  time  in  December,  and  had  also  been  there  in  the  summer. 

Sanford  Conover  testified  that  he  had  been  for  some  time  a  clerk  in  the  war  depart 
ment  at  Richmond;  that  in  Canada  he  knew  Thompson,  Sanders,  Cleary,  Tucker,  Clay, 
and  other  rebel  agents;  that  he  knew  John  H.  Surratt  and  John  Wilkes  Booth;  that  he 
saw  Booth  there  upon  one  occasion,  and  Surratt  upon  several  successive  days;  that  he 
saw  Surratt  (whom  he  describes)  in  April  last  in  Thompson's  room,  and  also  in  com 
pany  with  Sanders;  that  about  the  6th  or  7th  of  April,  Surratt  delivered  to  Jacob 
Thompson  a  despatch  brought  by  him  from  Benjamin  at  Richmond,  enclosing  one  in 
cipher  from  Davis.  Thompson  had  before  this  proposed  to  Conover  to  engage  in  a  plot 
to  assassinate  President  Lincoln  and  his  cabinet,  and  on  this  occasion  he  laid  his  hand 
upon  these  despatches  and  said,  "  This  makes  the  thing  all  right,"  referring  to  the 
assent  of  the  rebel  authorities,  and  stated  that  the  rebel  authorities  had  consented  to  the 
plot  to  assassinate  Lincoln,  Johnson,  the  Secretary  of  War,  Secretary  of  State,  Judge 
Chase,  and  General  Grant.  Thompson  remarked  further  that  the  assassination  of  these 
parties  would  leave  the  government  of  the  United  States  entirely  without  ahead;  that 
there  was  no  provision  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  by  which  they  could 
elect  another  President  if  these  men  were  put  out  of  the  way. 

In  speaking  of  this  assassination  of  the  President  and  others,  Thompson  said  that  it 
was  only  removing  them  from  office,  that  the  killing  of  a  tyrant  was  no  murder.  It 
seems  that  he  had  learned  precisely  the  same  lesson  that  Alston  had  learned  in  Novem 
ber,  when  he  communicated  with  Davis,  and  said,  speaking  of  the  President's  assassi 
nation,  "  he  did  not  think  anything  dishonorable  that  would  serve  their  cause." 


APPENDIX.  367 

Thompson  stated  at  the  same  time  that  he  had  conferred  a  commission  on  Booth,  and 
that  everybody  engaged  in  the  enterprise  would  be  commissioned,  and  if  it  succeeded, 
or  failed,  and  they  escaped  into  Canada,  they  could  not  be  reclaimed  under  the  extra 
dition  treaty.  The  fact  that  Thompson  and  other  rebel  agents  held  blank  commissions, 
as  I  have  said,  has  been  proved,  and  a  copy  of  one  of  them  is  of  record  here, 

This  witness  also  testifies  to  a  conversation  with  William  C.  Cleary,  shortly  after  the 
surrender  of  Lee's  army,  and  on  the  day  before  the  President's  assassination,  at  the  St. 
Lawrence  Hotel,  Montreal,  when  speaking  of  the  rejoicing  in  the  States  over  the  cap 
ture  of  Richmond,  Cleary  said,  "  they  would  put  the  laugh  on  the  other  side  of  their 
mouth  in  a  day  or  truo."  These  parties  knew  that  Conover  was  in  the  secret  of  the 
assassination,  and  talked  with  him  about  it  as  freely  as  they  would  speak  of  the  weather. 
Before  the  assassination  he  had  a  conversation  also  with  Sanders,  who  asked  him  if  he 
knew  Booth  well,  and  expressed  some  apprehension  that  Booth  would  "  make  a  failure 
of  it;  that  he  was  desperate  and  reckless,  and  he  was  afraid  the  whole  thing  would 
prove  a  failure." 

Dr.  James  D.  Merritt  testifies  that  George  Young,  one  of  the  parties  named  in  the 
record,  declared  in  his  presence,  in  Canada,  last  fall,  that  Lincoln  should  never  be 
inaugurated;  that  they  had  friends  in  Washington  who,  I  suppose,  were  some  of  the 
same  friends  referred  to  in  the  despatch  of  October  13,  and  which  Davis  had  directed 
them  "to  set  to  work."  George  N.  Sanders  also  said  to  him  "that  Lincoln  would 
keep  himself  mighty  close  if  he  did  serve  another  term  ";  while  Steele  and  other  Con 
federates  declared  that  the  tyrant  never  should  serve  another  term.  He  heard  the  assassi 
nation  discussed  at  a  meeting  of  these  rebel  agents  in  Montreal  in  February  last.  "  San 
ders  said  they  had  plenty  of  money  to  accomplish  the  assassination,  and  named  over  a 
number  of  persons  who  were  ready  and  willing  to  engage  in  undertaking  to  remove  the 
President,  Vice-President,  the  cabinet,  and  some  of  the  leading  generals.  At  this  meet 
ing  he  read  a  letter  which  he  had  received  from  Davis,  which  justified  him  in  making 
any  arrangements  that  he  could  to  accomplish  the  object."  This  letter*  the  witness 
heard  read,  and  it,  in  substance,  declared  that  if  the  people  in  Canada  and  the  South 
erners  in  the  States  were  willing  to  submit  to  be  governed  by  such  a  tyrant  as  Lincoln, 
he  didn't  wish  to  recognize  them  as  friends.  The  letter  was  read  openly;  it  was  also 
handed  to  Colonel  Steele,  George  Young,  Hill,  and  Scott,  to  be  read.  This  was  about 
the  middle  of  February  last.  At  this  meeting  Sanders  named  over  the  persons  who 
were  willing  to  accomplish  the  assassination,  and  among  the  persons  thus  named  was 
Booth,  whom  the  witness  had  seen  in  Canada  in  October  ;  also  George  Harper,  one  of 
the  conspirators  named  on  the  record,  Caldwell,  Randall,  Harrison,  and  Surratt. 

The  witness  understood,  from  the  reading  of  the  letter,  that  if  the  President,  Vice- 
President,  and  cabinet  could  be  disposed  of  it  would  satisfy  the  people  of  the  North 
that  the  Southerners  had  friends  in  the  North ;  that  a  peace  could  be  obtained  on  better 
terms;  that  the  rebels  had  endeavored  to  bring  about  a  war  between  the  United  States 
and  England,  and  that  Mr.  Seward,  through  his  energy  and  sagacity,  had  thwarted  all 
their  efforts;  that  was  given  as  a  reason  for  removing  him.  On  the  5th  or  6th  of  last 
April  this  witness  met  George  Harper,  Caldwell,  Randall,  and  others,  who  are  spoken  of 
in  this  meeting  at  Montreal  as  engaged  to  assassinate  the  President  and  cabinet,  when 
Harper  said  they  were  going  to  the  States  to  make  a  row  such  as  had  never  been  heard 
of,  and  added  that  "if  I  (the  witness)  did  not  hear  of  the  death  of  Old  Abe,  of  the 
Vice-President,  and  of  General  Dix  in  less  than  ten  days  I  might  put  him  down  as  a 
fool.  That  was  on  the  6th  of  April.  He  mentioned  that  Booth  was  in  Washington  at 


368  APPENDIX. 

that  time.  He  said  they  had  plenty  of  friends  in  Washington,  and  that  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  were  going." 

This  witness  ascertained,  on  the  8th  of  April,  that  Harper  and  others  had  left  for 
the  States.  The  proof  is  that  these  parties  could  come  through  to  Washington  from. 
Montreal  or  Toronto  in  thirty-six  hours.  They  did  come,  and  within  the  ten  days, 
named  by  Harper  the  President  was  murdered  !  Some  attempts  have  been  made  to  dis 
credit  this  witness  (Dr.  Merritt),  not  by  the  examination  of  witnesses  in  court,  not  by 
any  apparent  want  of  truth  in  the  testimony,  but  by  the  ex  partc  statements  of  these 
rebel  agents  in  Canada  and  their  hired  advocates  in  the  United  States.  There  is  a  state 
ment  upon  the  record  verified  by  an  official  communication  from  the  War  Department,, 
which  shows  the  truthfulness  of  this  witness,  and  that  is,  that  before  the  assassination,, 
learning  that  Harper  and  his  associates  had  started  for  the  States,  informed  as  he  was 
of  their  purpose  to  assassinate  the  President,  cabinet,  and  leading  generals,  Merritt 
deemed  it  his  duty  to  call,  and  did  call,  on  the  loth  of  April,  upon  a  justice  of  the 
peace  in  Canada,  named  Davidson,  and  gave  him  the  information  that  he  might  take 
steps  to  stop  these  proceedings.  The  correspondence  on  this  subject  with  Davidson  has 
been  brought  into  court.  Dr.  Merritt  testifies  further  that  after  this  meeting  in  Mont 
real  he  had  a  conversation  with  Clement  C.  Clay,  in  Toronto,  about  the  letter  from 
Jefferson  Davis  which  Sanders  had  exhibited,  in  which  conversation  Clay  gave  the  wit 
ness  to  understand  that  he  knew  the  nature  of  the  letter  perfectly,  and  remarked  that 
he  thought  "  the  end  would  justify  the  means."  The  witness  also  testifies  to  the  pres 
ence  of  Booth  with  Sanders  in  Montreal  last  fall,  and  of  Surratt  in  Toronto  in  February 
last. 

The  court  must  be  satisfied  by  the  manner  of  this  and  other  witnesses  to  the  transac 
tions  in  Canada,  as  well  as  by  the  fact  that  they  are  wholly  uncontradicted  in  any  mate 
rial  matter  that  they  state,  that  they  speak  the  truth,  and  that  the  several  parties  named 
on  your  record  —  Davis,  Thompson,  Cleary,  Tucker,  Clay,  Young,  Harper,  Booth,  and 
John  II.  Surratt  —  did  combine  and  conspire  together  in  Canada  to  kill  and  murder 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson,  William  H,  Seward,  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant.  That 
this  agreement  was  substantially  entered  into  by  Booth  and  the  agents  of  Davis  in 
Canada  as  early  as  October  there  cannot  be  any  doubt.  The  language  of  Thompson  at 
that  time  and  before  was,  that  he  was  in  favor  of  the  assassination.  His  further  lan 
guage  was  that  he  knew  the  men  who  were  ready  to  do  it  ;  and  Booth  it  was  shown 
was  there  at  that  time,  and,  as  Thompson's  secretary  says,  was  one  of  the  men  referred 
to  by  Thompson. 

The  fact  that  others,  besides  the  parties  named  on  the  record,  were,  by  the  terms  of 
the  conspiracy  to  be  assassinated  in  no  wise  affects  the  case  now  on  trial.  If  it  is  true 
that  these  parties  did  conspire  to  murder  other  parties,  as  well  as  those  named  upon  the 
record,  the  substance  of  the  charge  is  proved. 

It  is  also  true  that  if,  in  pursuance  of  that  conspiracy,  Booth,  confederated  with 
Surratt  and  the  accused,  killed  and  murdered  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  charge  and  specifi 
cation  is  proved  literally  as  stated  on  your  record,  although  their  conspiracy  embraced 
other  persons.  In  law  the  case  stands,  though  it  may  appear  that  the  conspiracy  was  to 
kill  and  murder  the  parties  named  in  the  record  and  others  not  named  in  the  record.  If 
the  proof  is  that  the  accused,  with  Booth,  Surratt,  Davis,  etc.,  conspired  to  kill  and 
murder  one  or  more  of  the  persons  named,  the  charge  of  the  conspiracy  is  proved. 

The  declaration  of  Sanders,  as  proved,  that  there  was  plenty  of  money  to  carry  out 
this  assassination,  is  very  strongly  corroborated  by  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Campbell,  cashier 


APPENDIX.  369 

of  the  Ontario  Bank,  who  states  that  Thompson,  during  the  current  year  preceding  the 
assassination,  had  upon  deposit  in  the  Montreal  branch  of  the  Ontario  Bank  six  hundred 
and  forty-nine  thousand  dollars,  beside  large  sums  to  his  credit  in  other  banks  in  the 
province. 

There  is  a  further  corroboration  of  the  testimony  of  Conover  as  to  the  meeting  of 
Thompson  and  Surratt  in  Montreal,  and  the  delivery  of  the  despatches  from  Richmond, 
on  the  6th  or  yth  of  April,  first,  in  the  fact  which  is  shown  by  the  testimony  of  Chester, 
that  in  the  winter  or  spring  Booth  said  he  himself  or  some  other  party  must  go  to  Rich 
mond,  and  second,  by  the  letter  of  Arnold,  dated  2;th  of  March  last,  that  he  preferred 
Booth's  first  query,  that  he  would  first  go  to  Richmond  and  see  how  they  would  take 
it,  manifestly  alluding  to  the  proposed  assassination  of  the  President.  It  does  not  follow 
because  Davis  had  written  a  letter  in  February  which,  in  substance,  approved  the  gen 
eral  object,  that  the  parties  were  fully  satisfied  with  it  ;  because  it  is  clear  there  was  to- 
be  some  arrangement  made  about  the  funds  ;  and  it  is  also  clear  that  Davis  had  not 
before  as  distinctly  approved  and  sanctioned  this  act  as  his  agents  either  in  Canada  or 
here  desired.  Booth  said  to  Chester,  "We  must  have  money  ;  there  is  money  in  this 
business,  and  if  you  will  enter  into  it  I  will  place  three  thousand  dollars  at  the  disposal 
of  your  family  ;  but  I  have  no  money  myself,  and  must  go  to  Richmond,"  or  one  of 
the  parties  must  go,  "  to  get  money  to  carry  out  the  enterprise."  This  was  one  of 
the  arrangements  that  was  to  be  "made  right  in  Canada."  The  funds  at  Thompson's 
disposal,  as  the  banker  testifies,  were  exclusively  raised  by  drafts  of  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  of  the  Confederate  States  upon  London,  deposited  in  their  bank  to  the  credit  of 
Thompson. 

Accordingly,  about  the  27th  of  March,  Surratt  did  go  to  Richmond.  On  the  3rd  of 
April  he  returned  to  Washington,  and  the  same  day  left  for  Canada.  Before  leaving, 
he  stated  to  Wiechmann  that  when  in  Richmond  he  had  had  a  conversation  with  Davis 
and  with  Benjamin.  The  fact  in  this  connection  is  not  to  be  overlooked,  that  on  or 
about  the  day  Surratt  arrived  in  Montreal,  April  6,  Jacob  Thompson,  as  the  cashier  of 
the  Ontario  bank  states,  drew  of  these  Confederate  funds  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty  thousand  dollars  in  the  form  of  certificates,  which,  as  the  bank  officer  testifies, 
"  might  be  used  anywhere." 

What  more  is  wanting  ?  Surely  no  word  further  need  be  spoken  to  showr  that  John 
Wilkes  Booth  was  in  this  conspiracy  ;  that  John  II.  Surratt  was  in  this  conspiracy  ; 
and  that  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  several  agents  named,  in  Canada,  were  in  this  con 
spiracy.  If  any  additional  evidence  is  wanting  to  show  the  complicity  of  Davis  in  it, 
let  the  paper  found  in  the  possession  of  his  hired  assassin,  Booth,  come  to  bear  witness 
against  him.  That  paper  contained  the  secret  cipher  which  Davis  used  in  his  state 
department  at  Richmond  which  he  employed  in  communicating  with  his  agents  in 
Canada,  and  which  they  employed  in  the  letter  of  October  13,  notifying  him  that  "  their 
friends  would  be  set  to  work  as  he  had  directed ."  The  letter  in  cipher  found  in  Booth's 
possession  is  translated  here  by  the  use  of  the  cipher  machine  now  in  court,  which,  as 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  Dana  shows,  he  brought  from  the  rooms  of  Davis's  state  depart 
ment  in  Richmond.  Who  gave  Booth  this  secret  cipher?  Of  what  use  was  it  to  him  if 
he  was  not  in  confederation  with  Davis? 

But  there  is  one  other  item  of  testimony  that  ought,  among  honest  and  intelligent 
people  at  all  conversant  with  this  evidence,  to  end  all  further  inquiry  as  to  whether 
Jefferson  Davis  was  one  of  the  parties,  with  Booth,  as  charged  upon  this  record,  in  the 
conspiracy  to  assassinate  the  President  and  others.  That  is  that  on  the  fifth  day  after 


370  APPENDIX. 

the  assassination,  in  the  city  of  Charlotte,  N.  C.,  a  telegraphic  despatch  was  received  by 
him,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Bates,  from  John  C.  Breckinridge,  his  rebel  Secretary  of  War, 
which  despatch  is  produced  here,  identified  by  the  telegraph  agent,  and  placed  upon 
your  record  in  the  words  following:  — 

"GREENSBORO',  April  19,  1865. 
•*'//is  Excellency  President  Da-vis  :  — 

"  President  Lincoln  was  assassinated  in  the  theatre  in  Washington  on  the  night  of 
the  I4th  inst.  Seward's  house  was  entered  on  the  same  night  and  he  was  repeatedly 
stabbed,  and  is  probably  mortally  wounded. 

"JOHN  C.  BRECKINRIDGE." 

At  the  time  this  despatch  was  handed  to  him,  Davis  was  addressing  a  meeting  from 
the  steps  of  Mr.  Bates's  house,  and  after  reading  the  despatch  to  the  people,  he  said: 
"  If  it  were  to  be  done,  it  were  better  it  were  well  done."  Shortly  afterwards,  in  the 
house  of  the  witness,  in  the  same  city,  Breckinridge,  having  come  to  see  Davis,  stated 
his  regret  that  the  occurrence  had  happened,  because  he  deemed  it  unfortunate  for  the 
people  of  the  South  at  that  time.  Davis  replied,  referring  to  the  assassination,  "  Well, 
general,  I  don't  know;  if  it  were  to  be  done  at  all,  it  were  better  that  it  were  well 
done;  and  if  the  same  had  been  done  to  Andy  Johnson,  the  beast,  and  to  Secretary 
Stanton,  the  job  would  then  be  complete.'1'' 

Accomplished  as  this  man  was  in  all  the  arts  of  a  conspirator,  he  was  not  equal  to 
the  task  —  as  happily,  in  the  good  providence  of  God,  no  mortal  man  is  —  of  conceal 
ing,  by  any  form  of  words,  any  great  crime  which  he  may  have  meditated  or  per 
petrated  either  against  his  government  or  his  fellow-men.  It  was  doubtless  furthest 
from  Jefferson  Davis's  purpose  to  make  confession,  and  yet  he  did  make  a  confession. 
His  guilt  demanded  utterance;  that  demand  he  could  not  resist;  therefore  his  words 
proclaimed  his  guilt,  in  spite  of  his  purpose  to  conceal  it.  He  said,  "  if  it  were  to  be 
clone,  it  were  better  it  were  well  done."  Would  any  man  ignorant  of  the  conspiracy  be 
able  to  devise  and  fashion  such  a  form  of  speech  as  that?  Had  not  the  President  been 
murdered?  Had  he  not  reason  to  believe  that  the  Secretary  of  State  had  been  mor 
tally  wounded?  Yet  he  was  not  satisfied,  but  was  compelled  to  say,  "  it  were  better 
it  were  well  done  "  — that  is  to  say,  all  that  had  been  agreed  to  be  done  had  not  been 
clone.  Two  days  afterwards,  in  his  conversation  with  Breckinridge,  he  not  only  repeats 
the  same  form  of  expression,  "if  it  were  to  be  done  it  were  better  it  were  well  done," 
but  adds  these  words:  "  And  if  the  same  had  been  done  to  Andy  Johnson,  the  beast, 
and  to  Secretary  Stanton,  the  job  would  then  be  complete."  He  would  accept  the  assas 
sination  of  the  President,  the  Vice-President,  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  Secre 
tary  of  War,  as  a  complete  execution  of  the  "job,"  which  he  had  given  out  upon 
contract,  and  which  he  had  "  made  all  right,"  so  far  as  the  pay  was  concerned,  by  the 
despatches  he  had  sent  to  Thompson  by  Surratt,  one  of  his  hired  assassins.  Whatever 
may  be  the  conviction  of  others,  my  own  conviction  is  that  Jefferson  Davis  is  as  clearly 
proven  guilty  of  this  conspiracy  as  is  John  Wilkes  Booth,  by  whose  hand  Jefferson 
Davis  inflicted  the  mortal  wound  upon  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  words  of  intense  hate 
and  rage  and  disappointment  are  not  to  be  overlooked  —  that  the  assassins  had  not 
done  their  work  well ;  that  they  had  not  succeeded  in  robbing  the  people  altogether  of 
their  constitutional  Executive  and  his  advisers;  and  hence  he  exclaims,  "  If  they  had 
killed  Andy  Johnson,  the  beast !  "  Neither  can  he  conceal  his  chagrin  and  disappoint 
ment  that  the  war  minister  of  the  republic,  whose  energy,  incorruptible  integrity, 
sleepless  vigilance,  and  executive  ability  had  organized  day  by  day,  month  by  month, 


APPENDIX.  371 

and  year  by  year,  victory  for  our  arms,  had  escaped  the  knife  of  the  hired  assassins. 
The  job,  says  this  procurer  of  assassination,  was  not  well  done;  it  had  been  better  if 
it  had  been  well  done  !  Because  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  clear  in  his  great  office, 
and  had  saved  the  nation's  life  by  enforcing  the  nation's  laws,  this  traitor  declares  he 
must  be  murdered;  because  Mr.  Seward,  as  the  foreign  secretary  of  the  country,  had 
thwarted  the  purposes  of  treason  to  plunge  his  country  into  a  war  with  England,  he 
must  be  murdered;  because,  upon  the  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Andrew  Johnson  would 
succeed  to  the  presidency,  and  because  he  had  been  true  to  the  Constitution  and  gov 
ernment,  faithful  found  among  the  faithless  of  his  own  State,  clinging  to  the  falling 
pillars  of  the  republic  when  others  had  fled,  he  must  be  murdered;  and  because  the 
Secretary  of  War  had  taken  care,  by  the  faithful  discharge  of  his  duties,  that  the 
republic  should  live  and  not  die,  he  must  be  murdered.  Inasmuch  as  these  two  faithful 
officers  were  not  also  assassinated,  assuming  that  the  Secretary  of  State  was  mortally 
wounded,  Davis  could  not  conceal  his  disappointment  and  chagrin  that  the  work  was 
not  "  well  done,"  that  "  the  job  was  not  complete  !  " 

Thus  it  appears  by  the  testimony  that  the  proposition  made  to  Davis  was  to  kill  and 
murder  the  deadliest  enemies  of  the  Confederacy  —  not  to  kidnap  them,  as  is  now  pre 
tended  here;  that  by  the  declaration  of  Sanders,  Tucker,  Thompson,  Clay,  deary, 
Harper,  and  Young,  the  conspirators  in  Canada,  the  agreement  and  combination  among 
them  was  to  kill  and  murder  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  H.  Seward,  Andrew  Johnson, 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  and  others  of  his  advisors,  and  not  to  kidnap 
them;  it  appears  from  every  utterance  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  as  well  as  from  the 
Charles  Selby  letter,  of  which  mention  will  presently  be  made,  that,  as  early  as  Novem 
ber,  the  proposition  with  him  was  to  kill  and  murder,  not  to  kidnap. 

Since  the  first  examination  of  Conover,  who  testified,  as  the  court  will  remember, 
to  many  important  facts  against  these  conspirators  and  agents  of  Davis  in  Canada  — 
among  others,  the  terrible  and  fiendish  plot  disclosed  by  Thompson,  Fallen,  and  others, 
that  they  had  ascertained  the  volume  of  water  in  the  reservoir  supplying  New  York 
City,  estimated  the  quantity  of  poison  required  to  render  it  deadly,  and  intended  thus 
to  poison  a  whole  city  —  Conover  returned  to  Canada,  by  direction  of  this  court,  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  certain  documentary  evidence.  There,  about  the  9th  of  June, 
he  met  Beverley  Tucker,  Sanders,  and  other  conspirators,  and  conversed  with  them. 
Tucker  declared  that  Secretary  Stanton,  whom  he  denounced  as  "  a  scoundrel,"  and 
Judge  Holt,  whom  he  called  "  a  bloodthirsty  villain,"  "  could  protect  themselves  as  long 
as  they  remained  in  office  by  a  guard,  but  that  would  not  always  be  the  case,  and,  by 
the  Eternal,  he  had  a  large  account  to  settle  with  them."  After  this,  the  evidence  of 
Conover  here  having  been  published,  these  parties  called  upon  him  and  asked  him 
whether  he  had  been  to  Washington  and  had  testified  before  this  court.  Conover 
denied  it;  they  insisted,  and  took  him  to  a  room  where,  with  drawn  pistols,  they  com 
pelled  him  to  consent  to  make  an  affidavit  that  he  had  been  falsely  personated  here  by 
another,  and  that  he  would  make  that  affidavit  before  a  Mr.  Kerr,  who  would  witness  it. 
They  then  called  in  Mr.  Kerr  to  certify  to  the  public  that  Conover  had  made  such  a  denial. 
They  also  compelled  this  witness  to  furnish  for  publication  an  advertisement  offering  a 
reward  of  five  hundred  dollars  for  the  arrest  of  the  "  infamous  and  perjured  scoundrel  " 
who  had  recently  personated  James  W.  Wallace  under  the  name  of  Sanford  Conover, 
and  testified  to  a  tissue  of  falsehoods  before  the  military  commission  at  Washington, 
which  advertisement  was  published  in  the  papers. 

To  these  facts  Mr.  Conover  now  testifies,  and  also  discloses  the  fact  that  these  same 


372  APPENDIX. 

men  published,  in  the  report  of  the  proceedings  before  Judge  Smith,  an  affidavit  pur 
porting  to  be  his,  but  which  he  never  made.  The  affidavit  which  he  in  fact  made,  and 
which  was  published  in  a  newspaper  at  that  time,  produced  here,  is  set  out  substantially 
upon  your  record,  and  agrees  with  the  testimony  upon  the  same  point  given  by  him  in 
this  court. 

To  suppose  that  Conover  ever  made  such  an  affidavit  voluntarily  as  the  one  wrung 
from  him  as  stated  is  impossible.  Would  he  advertise  for  his  own  arrest  and  charge 
himself  with  falsely  personating  himself?  But  the  fact  cannot  evade  observation,  that 
when  these  guilty  conspirators  saw  Conover's  testimony  before  this  court  in  the  public 
prints,  revealing  to  the  world  the  atrocious  plots  of  these  felon  conspirators,  conscious 
of  the  truthfulness  of  his  statements,  they  cast  about  at  once  for  some  defense  before  the 
public,  and  devised  the  foolish  and  stupid  invention  of  compelling  him  to  make  an 
affidavit  that  he  was  not  Sanford  Conover,  was  not  in  this  court,  never  gave  this  testi 
mony,  but  was  a  practicing  lawyer  in  Montreal !  This  infamous  proceeding,  coupled 
with  the  evidence  before  detailed,  stamps  these  ruffian  plotters  with  the  guilt  01  this 
conspiracy. 

John  Wilkes  Booth  having  entered  into  this  conspiracy  in  Canada,  as  has  been 
shown,  as  early  as  October,  he  is  next  found  in  the  city  of  New  York  on  the  nth  day, 
as  I  claim,  of  November,  in  disguise,  in  conversation  with  another,  the  conversation 
disclosing  to  the  witness,  Mrs.  Hudspeth,  that  they  had  some  matter  of  personal  interest 
between  them;  that  upon  one  of  them  the  lot  had  fallen  to  go  to  Washington  —  upon 
the  other  to  go  to  New  Berne.  This  witness,  upon  being  shown  the  photograph  of 
Booth,  swears  "  that  the  face  is  the  same  "  as  that  of  one  of  those  men,  who,  she  says, 
was  a  young  man  of  education  and  culture,  as  appeared  by  his  conversation,  and  who- 
had  a  scar  like  a  bite  near  the  jaw-bone.  It  is  a  fact  proved  here  by  the  Surgeon  Gen 
eral  that  Booth  had  such  a  scar  on  the  side  of  his  neck.  Mrs.  Hudspeth  heard  him  say 
he  would  leave  for  Washington  the  day  after  to-morrow.  His  companion  appeared 
angry  because  it  had  not  fallen  on  him  to  go  to  Washington.  This  took  place  after  the 
presidential  election  in  November.  She  cannot  fix  the  precise  date,  but  says  she  was 
told  that  General  Butler  left  New  York  on  that  day.  The  testimony  discloses  that 
General  Butler's  army  was  on  the  nth  of  November  leaving  New  York.  The  register 
of  the  National  Hotel  shows  that  Booth  left  Washington  on  the  early  morning  train, 
November  n,  and  that  he  returned  to  this  city  on  the  I4th.  Chester  testifies  positively 
to  Booth's  presence  in  New  York  early  in  November.  This  testimony  shows  most  con 
clusively  that  Booth  was  in  New  York  on  the  nth  of  November.  The  early  morning 
train  on  which  he  left  Washington  would  reach  New  York  early  in  the  afternoon  of 
that  day.  Chester  saw  him  there  early  in  November,  and  Mrs.  Hudspeth  not  only 
identifies  his  picture,  but  describes  his  person.  The  scar  upon  his  neck  near  his  jaw 
was  peculiar  and  is  well  described  by  the  witness  as  like  a  bite.  On  that  day  Booth 
had  a  letter  in  his  possession  which  he  accidentally  dropped  in  a  street  car  in  the  pres 
ence  of  Mrs.  Hudspeth,  the  witness,  who  delivered  it  to  Major  General  Dix  the  same 
day,  and  by  whom,  as  his  letter  on  file  before  this  court  shows,  the  same  was  trans 
mitted  to  the  War  Department,  November  17,  1864.  That  letter  contains  these  words :  — 

"  DEAR  Louis:  — The  time  has  at  last  come  that  we  have  all  so  wished  for,  and 
upon  you  everything  depends.  As  it  was  decided,  before  you  left,  we  were  to  cast 
lots,  we  accordingly  did  so,  and  you  are  to  be  the  Charlotte  Corday  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  When  you  remember  the  fearful,  solemn  vow  that  was  taken  by  us,  you  will 
feel  there  is  no  drawback.  Abe  must  die,  and  now.  You  can  choose  your  weapons  — 


APPENDIX.  3/3 

the  cuf>,  the  knife,  the  bullet.  The  cup  failed  us  once,  and  might  again.  Johnson,  who 
will  give  this,  has  been  like  an  enraged  demon  since  the  meeting,  because  it  has  not 
fallen  upon  him  to  rid  the  world  of  the  monster.  .  .  .  You  know  where  to  find 
your  friends.  Your  disguises  are  so  perfect  and  complete  that  without  one  knew  your 
face  no  police  telegraphic  despatch  would  catch  you.  The  English  gentleman,  liar- 
court,  must  not  act  hastily.  Remember,  he  has  ten  days.  Strike  for  your  home,  strike 
for  your  country  ;  bide  your  time,  but  strike  sure.  Get  introduced;  congratulate  him; 
listen  to  his  stories  (not  many  more  will  the  brute  tell  to  earthly  friends);  do  anything 
but  fail,  and  meet  us  at  the  appointed  place  within  the  fortnight.  You  will  probably 
hear  from  me  in  Washington.  Sanders  is  doing  us  no  good  in  Canada. 

"CHAS.  SELBY." 

The  learned  gentleman  (Mr.  Cox),  in  his  very  able  and  carefully  considered  argu 
ment  in  defense  of  O'Laughlin  and  Arnold,  attached  importance  to  this  letter,  and 
•doubtless  very  clearly  saw  its  bearing  upon  the  case,  and  therefore  undertook  to  show 
that  the  witness,  Mrs.  Hudspeth,  must  be  mistaken  as  to  the  person  of  Booth.  The  gen 
tleman  assumes  that  the  letter  of  General  Dix,  of  the  iyth  of  November  last,  transmit 
ting  this  letter  to  the  War  Department,  reads  that  the  party  who  dropped  the  letter  was 
heard  to  say  that  he  would  start  to  Washington  on  Friday  night  next,  although  the 
word  "  next  "  is  not  in  the  letter,  neither  is  it  in  the  quotation  which  the  gentleman 
makes,  for  he  quotes  it  fairly;  yet  he  concludes  that  this  would  be  the  i8th  of  November. 

Now  the  fact  is,  the  nth  of  November  last  was  Friday,  and  the  register  of  the 
National  Hotel  bears  witness  that  Mrs.  Hudspeth  is  not  mistaken;  because  her  language 
is,  that  Booth  said  he  would  leave  for  Washington  day  after  to-morrow,  which  would  be 
Sunday,  the  I3th,  and  if  in  the  evening,  would  bring  him  to  Washington  on  Monday, 
the  I4th  of  November,  the  day  on  which,  the  register  shows,  he  did  return  to  the 
National  Hotel.  As  to  the  improbability  which  the  gentleman  raises,  on  the  conversa 
tion  happening  in  a  street  car,  crowded  with  people,  there  was  nothing  that  transpired, 
although  the  conversation  was  earnest,  which  enabled  the  witness,  or  could  have  enabled 
any  one,  in  the  absence  of  this  letter  or  of  the  subsequent  conduct  of  Booth,  to  form 
the  least  idea  of  the  subject-matter  of  their  conversation.  The  gentleman  does  not 
deal  altogether  fairly  in  his  remarks  touching  the  letter  of  General  Dix,  because,  upon 
a  careful  examination  of  the  letter,  it  will  be  found  that  he  did  not  form  any  such  judg 
ment  as  that  it  was  a  hoax  for  the  Sunday  Mercury  ;  but  he  took  care  to  forward  it  to 
the  Department,  and  asked  attention  to  it,  when,  as  appears  by  the  testimony  of  the 
Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Dana,  the  letter  was  delivered  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
considered  it  important  enough  to  indorse  it  with  the  word  "  Assassination,"  and  file  it 
in  his  office,  where  it  was  found  after  the  commission  of  this  crime,  and  brought  into 
this  court  to  bear  witness  against  his  assassins. 

Although  this  letter  would  imply  that  the  assassination  spoken  of  was  to  take  place 
speedily,  yet  the  party  was  to  bide  his  time.  Though  he  had  entered  into  the  prelimi 
nary  arrangements  in  Canada,  although  conspirators  had  doubtless  agreed  to  co-operate 
with  him  in  the  commission  of  the  crime,  and  lots  had  been  cast  for  the  chief  part  in 
the  bloody  drama,  yet  it  remained  for  him,  as  the  leader  and  principal  of  the  hired 
assassins,  by  whose  hand  their  employers  were  to  strike  the  murderous  blow,  to  collect 
about  him  and  bring  to  Washington  such  persons  as  would  be  willing  to  lend  themselves 
for  a  price  to  the  horrid  crime,  and  likely  to  give  the  necessary  aid  and  support  in  its 
consummation.  The  letter  declares  that  Abraham  Lincoln  must  die,  and  now,  meaning 
as  soon  as  the  agents  can  be  employed  and  the  work  done.  To  that  end  you  will  bide 
your  time.  But,  says  the  gentleman,  it  could  not  have  been  the  same  conspiracy 


374  APPENDIX. 

charged  here  to  which  this  letter  refers.  Why  not?  It  is  charged  here  that  Booth, 
with  the  accused  and  others,  conspired  to  kill  and  murder  Abraham  Lincoln;  that  is 
precisely  the  conspiracy  disclosed  in  the  letter.  Granted  that  the  parties  on  trial  had 
not  then  entered  into  the  combination;  if  they  at  any  time  afterward  entered  into  it 
they  became  parties  to  it,  and  the  conspiracy  was  still  the  same.  But,  says  the  gentle 
man,  the  words  of  the  letter  imply  that  the  conspiracy  was  to  be  executed  within  the 
fortnight.  Booth  is  directed,  by  the  name  of  Louis,  to  meet  the  writer  within  the  fort 
night.  It  by  no  means  follows  that  he  was  to  strike  within  the  fortnight,  because  he 
was  to  meet  his  co-conspirator  within  that  time,  and  any  such  conclusion  is  excluded  by 
the  words,  "  Bide  your  time."  Even  if  the  conspiracy  was  to  be  executed  within  the 
fortnight,  and  was  not  so  executed,  and  the  same  party,  Booth,  afterwards  by  concert 
and  agreement  with  the  accused  and  others,  did  execute  it  by  "  striking  sure  "  and  kill 
ing  the  President,  that  act,  whenever  done,  would  be  but  the  execution  of  the  same 
conspiracy.  The  letter  is  conclusive  evidence  of  so  much  of  this  conspiracy  as  relates 
to  the  murder  of  President  Lincoln.  As  Booth  was  to  do  anything  but  fail,  he  immedi 
ately  thereafter  sought  out  the  agents  to  enable  him  to  strike  sure  and  execute  all  that 
he  had  agreed  with  Davis  and  his  co-confederates  in  Canada  to  do  —  to  murder  the 
President,  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  Vice-President,  General  Grant,  and  Secretary 
Stanton. 

Even  Booth's  co-conspirator,  Payne,  now  on  his  trial,  by  his  defense  admits  all  this, 
and  says  Booth  had  just  been  to  Canada,  "  was  filled  with  a  mighty  scheme,  and  was. 
lying  in  wait  for  agents."  Booth  asked  the  co-operation  of  the  prisoner,  Payne,  and 
said:  "  I  will  give  you  as  much  money  as  you  want;  but  first  you  must  swear  to  stick 
by  me.  It  is  in  the  oil  business."  This  you  are  told  by  the  accused  was  early  in  March 
last.  Thus  guilt  bears  witness  against  itself. 

We  find  Booth  in  New  York  in  November,  December,  and  January,  urging  Chester 
to  enter  into  this  combination,  assuring  him  that  there  was  money  in  it;  that  they  had 
"friends  on  the  other  side  ";  that  if  he  would  only  participate  in  it  he  would  never 
want  for  money  while  he  lived,  and  all  that  was  asked  of  him  was  to  stand  at  and  open 
the  back  door  of  Ford' 's  Theatre.  Booth,  in  his  interviews  with  Chester,  confesses  that 
he  is  without  money  himself,  and  allows  Chester  to  reimburse  him  the  fifty  dollars  which 
he  (Booth)  had  transmitted  to  him  in  a  letter  for  the  purpose  of  paying  his  expenses  to 
Washington  as  one  of  the  parties  to  this  conspiracy.  Booth  told  him,  although  he  him 
self  was  penniless,  "  there  is  money  in  this  —  we  have  friends  on  the  other  side  ";  and 
if  you  will  but  engage,  I  will  have  three  thousand  dollars  deposited  at  once  for  the  use 
of  your  family. 

Failing  to  secure  the  services  of  Chester,  because  his  soul  recoiled  with  abhorrence 
from  the  foul  work  of  assassination  and  murder,  he  found  more  willing  instruments  in 
others  whom  he  gathered  about  him.  Men  to  commit  the  assassinations,  horses  to- 
secure  speedy  and  certain  escape,  were  to  be  provided,  and  to  this  end  Booth,  with  an 
energy  worthy  of  a  better  cause,  applies  himself.  For  this  latter  purpose  he  told  Chester 
he  had  already  expended  five  thousand  dollars.  In  the  latter  part  of  November,  1864, 
he  visits  Charles  County,  Md.,  and  is  in  company  with  one  of  the  prisoners,  Dr. 
Samuel  A.  Mudd,  with  whom  he  lodged  over  night,  and  through  whom  he  procures  of 
Gardner  one  of  the  several  horses  which  were  at  his  disposal  and  used  by  him  and  his. 
co-conspirators  in  Washington  on  the  night  of  the  assassination. 

Some  time  in  January  last,  it  is  in  testimony  that  the  prisoner  Mudd  introduced 
Booth  to  John  H.  Surratt  and  the  witness  Wiechmann;  that  Booth  invited  them  to  the 


APPENDIX.  375 

National  Hotel;  that  when  there,  in  the  room  to  which  Booth  took  them,  Mudd  went  out 
into  the  passage,  called  Booth  out  and  had  a  private  conversation  with  him,  leaving  the 
witness  and  Surratt  in  the  room.  Upon  their  return  to  the  room,  Booth  went  out  with 
Surratt,  and  upon  their  coming  in,  all  three  —  Booth,  Surratt,  and  Samuel  A.  Mudd  — 
went  out  together  and  had  a  conversation  in  the  passage,  leaving  the  witness  alone. 
Up  to  the  time  of  this  interview  it  seems  that  neither  the  witness  nor  Surratt  had  any 
knowledge  of  Booth,  as  they  were  then  introduced  to  him  by  Dr.  Mudd.  Whether 
Surratt  had  in  fact  previously  known  Booth  it  is  not  important  to  inquire.  Mudd 
deemed  it  necessary,  perhaps  a  wise  precaution,  to  introduce  Surratt  to  Booth;  he  also 
deemed  it  necessary  to  have  a  private  conversation  with  Booth  shortly  afterwards,  and 
directly  upon  that  to  have  a  conversation  together  with  Booth  and  Surratt  alone.  Had 
this  conversation,  no  part  of  which  was  heard  by  the  witness,  been  perfectly  innocent, 
it  is  not  to  be  presumed  that  Dr.  Mudd,  who  was  an  entire  stranger  to  Wiechmann, 
would  have  deemed  it  necessary  to  hold  the  conversation  secretly,  nor  to  have  volun 
teered  to  tell  the  witness,  or  rather  pretend  to  tell  him,  what  the  conversation  was;  yet 
he  did  say  to  the  witness,  upon  their  return  to  the  room,  by  way  of  apology,  I  suppose, 
for  the  privacy  of  the  conversation,  that  Booth  had  some  private  business  with  him  and 
wished  to  purchase  his  farm.  This  silly  device,  as  is  often  the  case  in  attempts  at 
deception,  failed  in  the  execution;  for  it  remains  to  be  shown  how  the  fact  that  Mudd 
had  private  business  with  Booth,  and  that  Booth  wished  to  purchase  his  farm,  made  it 
at  all  necessary,  or  even  proper,  that  they  should  both  volunteer  to  call  out  Surratt, 
who,  up  to  that  moment,  was  a  stranger  to  Booth.  What  had  Surratt  to  do  with  Booth's 
purchase  of  Mudd's  farm?  And  if  it  was  necessary  to  withdraw  and  talk  by  themselves 
secretly  about  the  sale  of  the  farm,  why  should  they  disclose  the  fact  to  the  very  man 
from  whom  they  had  concealed  it? 

Upon  the  return  of  these  three  parties  to  the  room,  they  seated  themselves  at  a 
table,  and  upon  the  back  of  an  envelope  Booth  traced  lines  with  a  pencil,  indicating, 
as  the  witness  states,  the  direction  of  roads.  Why  was  this  done?  As  Booth  had  been 
previously  in  that  section  of  country,  as  the  prisoner  in  his  defense  has  taken  great 
pains  to  show,  it  was  certainly  not  necessary  to  anything  connected  with  the  purchase 
of  Mudd's  farm  that  at  that  time  he  should  be  indicating  the  direction  of  roads  to  or 
from  it;  nor  is  it  made  to  appear,  by  anything  in  this  testimony,  how  it  comes  that 
Surratt,  as  the  witness  testifies,  seemed  to  be  as  much  interested  in  the  marking  out  of 
these  roads  as  Mudd  or  Booth.  It  does  not  appear  that  Surratt  was  in  any  wise  con 
nected  with  or  interested  in  the  sale  of  Mudd's  farm.  From  all  that  has  transpired 
since  this  meeting  at  the  hotel,  it  would  seem  that  this  plotting  the  roads  was  intended, 
not  so  much  to  show  the  road  to  Mudd's  farm,  as  to  point  out  the  shortest  and  safest 
route  for  flight  from  the  capital,  by  the  houses  of  all  the  parties  to  this  conspiracy,  to 
their  "friends  on  the  other  side." 

But,  says  the  learned  gentleman  (Mr.  Ewing),  in  his  very  able  argument  in  defense 
of  this  prisoner,  why  should  Booth  determine  that  his  flight  should  be  through  Charles. 
County?  The  answer  must  be  obvious,  upon  a  moment's  reflection,  to  every  man,  and 
could  not  possibly  have  escaped  the  notice  of  the  counsel  himself,  but  for  the  reason 
that  his  zeal  for  his  client  constrained  him  to  overlook  it.  It  was  absolutely  essential 
that  this  murderer  should  have  his  co-conspirators  at  convenient  points  along  his  route, 
and  it  does  not  appear  in  evidence  that  by  the  route  to  his  friends,  who  had  then  fled 
from  Richmond,  which  the  gentleman  (Mr.  Ewing)  indicates  as  the  more  direct,  but  of 
which  there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  whatever,  Booth  had  co-conspirators  at  an 


3/6  APPENDIX. 

equal  distance  from  Washington.  The  testimony  discloses,  further,  that  on  the  route 
selected  by  him  for  his  flight  there  is  a  large  population  that  would  be  most  likely  to 
favor  and  aid  him  in  the  execution  of  his  wicked  purpose  and  in  making  his  escape. 
But  it  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  gentleman's  question  that  Booth's  co-conspirator, 
Mudd,  lived  in  Charles  County. 

To  return  to  the  meeting  at  the  hotel.  In  the  light  of  other  facts  in  this  case,  it 
must  become  clear  to  the  court  that  this  secret  meeting  between  Booth,  Surratt,  and 
Mudd  was  a  conference  looking  to  the  execution  of  this  conspiracy.  It  so  impressed 
the  prisoner  —  it  so  impressed  his  counsel,  that  they  deemed  it  necessary  and  absolutely 
essential  to  their  defense  to  attempt  to  destroy  the  credibility  of  the  witness  Wiechmann. 

I  may  say  here,  in  passing,  that  they  have  not  attempted  to  impeach  his  general 
reputation  for  truth  by  the  testimony  of  a  single  witness,  nor  have  they  impeached  his 
testimony  by  calling  a  single  witness  to  discredit  one  material  fact  to  which  he  has  testi 
fied  in  this  issue.  Failing  to  find  a  breath  of  suspicion  against  Wiechmann's  character, 
or  to  contradict  a  single  fact  to  which  he  testified,  the  accused  had  to  fly  to  the  last 
resort,  an  alibi,  and  very  earnestly  did  the  learned  counsel  devote  himself  to  the  task. 

It  is  not  material  whether  this  meeting  in  the  hotel  took  place  on  the  23d  of  Decem 
ber  or  in  January.  But,  says  the  counsel,  it  was  after  the  commencement  or  close  of 
the  Congressional  holiday.  That  is  not  material;  but  the  concurrent  resolution  of  Con 
gress  shows  that  the  holiday  commenced  on  the  22cl  of  December,  the  day  before  the 
accused  spent  the  evening  in  Washington.  The  witness  is  not  certain  about  the  date  of 
this  meeting.  The  material  fact  is,  did  this  meeting  take  place  — either  on  the  23d  of 
December  or  in  January  last?  Were  the  private  interviews  there  held,  and  was  the 
apology  made,  as  detailed,  by  Mudd  and  Booth,  after  the  secret  conference,  to  the 
witness?  That  the  meeting  did  take  place,  and  that  Mudd  did  explain  that  these  secret 
interviews,  with  Booth  first,  and  with  Booth  and  Surratt  directly  afterward,  had  relation 
to  the  sale  of  his  farm,  is  confessedly  admitted  by  the  endeavor  of  the  prisoner,  through 
his  counsel,  to  show  that  negotiations  had  been  going  on  between  Booth  and  Mudd  for 
the  sale  of  Mudd's  farm.  If  no  such  meeting  was  held,  if  no  such  explanation  was 
made  by  Mudd  to  Wiechmann,  can  any  man  for  a  moment  believe  that  a  witness  would 
have  been  called  here  to  give  any  testimony  about  Booth  having  negotiated  for  Mudd's 
farm?  What  conceivable  connection  has  it  with  this  case,  except  to  show  that  Mudd's 
explanation  to  Wiechmann  for  his  extraordinary  conduct  was  in  exact  accordance  with 
the  fact?  Or  was  this  testimony  about  the  negotiations  for  Mudd's  farm  intended  to 
show  so  close  an  intimacy  and  intercourse  with  Booth  that  Mudd  could  not  fail  to  rec 
ognize  him  when  he  came  flying  for  aid  to  his  house  from  the  work  of  assassination? 
It  would  be  injustice  to  the  able  counsel  to  suppose  that. 

I  have  said  that  it  was  wholly  immaterial  whether  this  conversation  took  place  on 
the  23d  of  December  or  in  January;  it  is  in  evidence  that  in  both  these  months  Booth 
was  at  the  National  Motel;  that  he  occupied  a  room  there;  that  he  arrived  there  on  the 
22d  and  was  there  on  the  23d  of  December  last,  and  also  on  the  I2th  clay  of  January. 
The  testimony  of  the  witness  is,  that  Booth  said  he  had  just  come  in.  Suppose  this 
conversation  took  place  in  December,  on  the  evening  of  the  230!,  the  time  when  it  is 
proved  by  J.  T.  Mudd,  the  witness  for  the  accused,  that  he,  in  company  with  Samuel 
A.  Mudd,  spent  the  night  in  Washington  City.  Is  there  anything  in  the  testimony  of 
that  or  any  other  witness  to  show  that  the  accused  did  not  have  and  could  not  have  had 
an  interview  with  Booth  on  that  evening?  J.  T.  Mudd  testifies  that  he  separated  from 
the  prisoner,  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  at  the  National  Hotel  early  in  the  evening  of  that  day, 


APPENDIX.  377 

and  did  not  meet  him  again  until  the  accused  came  in  for  the  night  at  the  Pennsylvania 
House,  where  he  stopped.  Where  was  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Mudd  during  this  interval? 
What  does  his  witness  know  about  him  during  that  time?  How  can  he  say  that  Dr. 
Mudd  did  not  go  up  on  Seventh  Street  in  company  with  Booth,  then  at  the  National; 
that  he  did  not  on  Seventh  Street  meet  Surratt  and  Wiechmann;  that  he  did  not  return 
to  the  National  Hotel;  that  he  did  not  have  this  interview,  and  afterwards  meet  him,  the 
witness,  as  he  testifies,  at  the  Pennsylvania  House?  Who  knows  that  the  Congressional 
holiday  had  not  in  fact  commenced  on  that  day?  What  witness  has  been  called  to  prove 
that  Booth  did  not  on  either  of  those  occasions  occupy  the  room  that  had  formerly  been 
occupied  by  a  member  of  Congress,  who  had  temporarily  vacated  it,  leaving  his  books 
there?  Wiechmann,  I  repeat,  is  not  positive  as  to  the  date,  he  is  only  positive  as  to 
the  fact;  and  he  disclosed  voluntarily  to  this  court  that  the  date  could  probably  be  fixed 
by  a  reference  to  the  register  of  the  Pennsylvania  House;  that  register  cannot,  of 
-course,  be  conclusive  of  whether  Mudd  was  there  in  January  or  not,  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  the  proprietor  admits  that  he  did  not  know  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  therefore 
Mudd  might  have  registed  by  any  other  name.  Wiechmann  does  not  pretend  to  know 
that  Mudd  had  registered  at  all.  If  Mudd  was  here  in  January,  as  a  party  to  this  con 
spiracy,  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that,  if  he  did  register  at  that  time  in  the  presence  of  a 
man  to  whom  he  was  wholly  unknown,  his  kinsman  not  then  being  with  him,  he  would 
register  by  a  false  name.  But  if  the  interview  took  place  in  December,  the  testimony 
•of  Wiechmann  bears  as  strongly  against  the  accused  as  if  it  had  happened  in  January. 
Wiechmann  says  he  does  not  know  what  time  was  occupied  in  this  interview  at  the 
National  Hotel;  that  it  probably  lasted  twenty  minutes;  that,  after  the  private  inter 
views  between  Mudd  and  Surratt  and  Booth,  which  were  not  of  very  long  duration, 
had  terminated,  the  parties  went  to  the  Pennsylvania  House,  where  Dr.  Mudd  had 
rooms,  and  after  sitting  together  in  the  common  sitting-room  of  the  hotel,  they  left  Dr. 
Mudd  there  about  ten  o'clock  P.M.,  who  remained  during  the  night.  Wiechmann's 
testimony  leaves  no  doubt  that  this  meeting  on  Seventh  Street  and  interview  at  the 
National  took  place  after  dark,  and  terminated  before  or  about  ten  o'clock  P.M.  His 
own  witness,  J.  T.  Mudd,  after  stating  that  he  separated  from  the  accused  at  the 
National  Hotel,  says  after  he  had  got  through  a  conversation  with  a  gentleman  of  his 
acquaintance,  he  walked  down  the  Avenue,  went  to  several  clothing  stores,  and  "after 
awhile"  walked  round  to  the  Pennsylvania  House,  and  "very  soon  after"  he  got 
there  Dr.  Mudd  came  in,  and  they  went  to  bed  shortly  afterwards.  What  time  he 
spent  in  his  "walk  alone"  on  the  Avenue,  looking  at  clothing;  what  period  he 
-embraces  in  the  terms  "after  a  while,"  when  he  returned  to  the  Pennsylvania  House, 
and  "soon  after"  which  Dr.  Mudd  got  there,  the  witness  does  not  disclose.  Neither 
does  he  intimate,  much  less  testify,  that  he  saw  Dr.  Mudd  when  he  first  entered  the 
Pennsylvania  House  on  that  night  after  their  separation.  How  does  he  know  that  Booth 
and  Surratt  and  Wiechmann  did  not  accompany  Samuel  A.  Mudd  to  that  house  that 
evening?  How  does  he  know  that  the  prisoner  and  those  persons  did  not  converse 
together  some  time  in  the  sitting-room  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hotel?  Jeremiah  Mudd 
has  not  testified  that  he  met  Dr.  Mudd  in  that  room,  or  that  he  was  in  it  himself.  He 
has,  however,  sworn  to  the  fact,  which  is  disproved  by  no  one,  that  the  prisoner  was 
separated  from  him  long  enough  that  evening  to  have  had  the  meeting  with  Booth, 
Surratt,  and  Wiechmann,  and  the  interviews  in  the  National  Hotel,  and  at  the  Pennsyl 
vania  House,  to  which  Wiechmann  has  testified?  Who  is  there  to  disprove  it?  Of 
•what  importance  is  it  whether  it  was  on  the  23d  day  of  December  or  in  January?  How 


378  APPENDIX. 

does  that  affect  the  credibility  of  Wiechmann?  He  is  a  man,  as  I  have  before  said,, 
against  whose  reputation  for  truth  and  good  conduct  they  have  not  been  able  to  bring 
one  witness.  If  this  meeting  did  by  possibility  take  place  that  night,  is  there  anything 
to  render  it  improbable  that  Booth  and  Mudd  and  Surratt  did  have  the  conversation  at 
the  National  Hotel  to  which  Wiechmann  testifies?  Of  what  avail,  therefore,  is  the 
attempt  to  prove  that  Mudd  was  not  here  during  January,  if  it  was  clear  that  he  was 
here  on  the  23d  of  December,  1864,  and  had  this  conversation  with  Booth?  That  this 
attempt  to  prove  an  alibi  during  January  has  failed,  is  quite  as  clear  as  is  the  proof  of 
the  fact  that  the  prisoner  was  here  on  the  evening  of  the  23d  of  December,  and  present 
in  the  National  Hotel,  where  Booth  stopped.  The  fact  that  the  prisoner,  Samuel  A. 
Mudd,  went  with  J.  T.  Mudd  on  that  evening  to  the  National  Hotel,  and  there  sepa 
rated  from  him,  is  proved  by  his  own  witness,  J.  T.  Mudd;  and  that  he  did  not  rejoin 
him  until  they  retired  to  bed  in  the  Pennsylvania  House  is  proved  by  the  same  witness 
and  contradicted  by  nobody.  Does  any  one  suppose  there  would  have  been  such 
assiduous  care  to  prove  that  the  prisoner  was  with  his  kinsman  all  the  time  on  the  23d 
of  December,  in  Washington,  if  they  had  not  known  that  Booth  was  then  at  the 
National  Hotel,  and  that  a  meeting  of  the  prisoner  with  Booth,  Surratt,  and  Wiech 
mann  on  that  day  would  corroborate  and  confirm  Wiechmann's  testimony  in  every 
material  statement  he  made  concerning  that  meeting? 

The  accused  having  signally  failed  to  account  for  his  absence  after  he  separated  from 
his  witness,  J.  T.  Mudd,  early  in  the  evening  of  the  23d  of  December,  at  the  National 
Hotel,  until  they  had  again  met  at  the  Pennsylvania  House,  when  they  retired  to  rest,, 
he  now  attempts  to  prove  an  alibi  as  to  the  month  of  January.  In  this  he  has  failed, 
as  he  failed  in  the  attempt  to  show  that  he  could  not  have  met  Booth,  Surratt,  and 
Wriechmann  on  the  23d  of  December. 

For  this  purpose  the  accused  calls  Betty  Washington.  She  had  been  at  Mudd's. 
house  every  night  since  the  Monday  after  Christmas  last,  except  when  here  at  court, 
and  says  that  the  prisoner,  Mudd,  has  only  been  away  from  home  three  nights  during 
that  time.  This  witness  forgets  that  Mudd  has  not  been  at  home  any  night  or  day  since 
this  court  assembled.  Neither  does  she  account  for  the  three  nights  in  which  she  swears- 
to  his  absence  from  home.  First,  she  says  he  went  to  Gardner's  party;  second,  he 
went  to  Giesboro,  then  to  Washington.  She  does  not  know  in  what  month  he  was 
away,  the  second  time,  all  night.  She  only  knows  where  he  went  from  what  he  and 
his  wife  said,  which  is  not  evidence;  but  she  does  testify  that  when  he  left  home  and 
was  absent  over  night  the  second  time,  it  was  about  two  or  three  weeks  after  she  came 
to  his  house,  which  would,  if  it  were  three  weeks,  make  it  just  about  the  I5th  of  Jan 
uary,  1865;  because  she  swears  she  came  to  his  house  on  the  first  Monday  after  Christ 
mas  last,  which  was  the  26th  day  of  December;  so  that  the  1 5th  of  January  would  be 
three  weeks,  less  one  day,  from  that  time;  and  it  might  have  been  a  week  earlier 
according  to  her  testimony,  as,  also,  it  might  have  been  a  week  earlier,  or  more,  by 
Wiechmann's  testimony,  for  he  is  not  positive  as  to  the  time.  What  I  have  said  of  the 
register  of  the  Pennsylvania  House,  the  headquarters  of  Mudd  and  Atzerodt,  I  need 
not  here  repeat.  That  record  proves  nothing,  save  that  Dr.  Mudd  was  there  on  the 
23d  of  December,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  fact,  along  with  others,  to  show  that 
the  meeting  at  the  National  then  took  place.  I  have  also  called  the  attention  of.  the 
court  to  the  fact  that  if  Mudd  was  at  that  house  again  in  January,  and  did  not  register 
his  name,  that  fact  proves  nothing;  or,  if  he  did,  the  register  only  proves  that  he  regis 
tered  falsely;  either  of  which  facts  might  have  happened  without  the  knowledge  of  the 


APPENDIX.  379 

witness  called  by  the  accused  from  that  house,  who  does  not  know  Samuel  A.  Mudd 
personally. 

The  testimony  of  Henry  L.  Mudd,  his  brother,  in  support  of  this  alibi ,  is,  that  the 
prisoner  was  in  Washington  on  the  23d  of  March,  and  on  the  loth  of  April,  four  days 
before  the  murder  !  But  he  does  not  account  for  the  absent  night  in  January,  about 
which  Betty  Washington  testifies.  Thomas  Davis  was  called  for  the  same  purpose,  but 
stated  that  he  was  himself  absent  one  night  in  January,  after  the  9th  of  that  month, 
and  he  could  not  say  whether  Mudd  was  there  on  that  night  or  not.  He  does  testify  to 
Mudd's  absence  over  night  three  times,  and  fixes  one  occasion  on  the  night  of  the  26th 
of  January.  In  consequence  of  his  own  absence  one  night  in  January,  this  witness 
cannot  account  for  the  absence  of  Mudd  on  the  night  referred  to  by  Betty  Washington. 

This  matter  is  entitled  to  no  further  attention.  It  can  satisfy  no  one,  and  the  burden 
of  proof  is  upon  the  prisoner  to  prove  that  he  was  not  in  Washington  in  January  last. 
How  can  such  testimony  convince  any  rational  man  that  Mudd  was  not  here  in  January, 
against  the  evidence  of  an  unimpeached  witness,  who  swears  that  Samuel  A.  Mudd  was 
in  Washington  in  the  month  of  January?  Who  that  has  been  examined  here  as  a 
witness  knows  that  he  was  not? 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Evans  swears  that  he  saw  him  in  Washington  last  winter,  and  that  at 
the  same  time  he  saw  Jarboe,  the  one  coming  out  of,  and  the  other  going  into,  a  house 
on  H  Street,  which  he  was  informed  on  inquiry  was  the  house  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  Jarboe 
is  the  only  witness  called  to  contradict  Mr.  Evans,  and  he  leaves  it  in  extreme  doubt 
whether  he  does  not  corroborate  him,  as  he  swears  that  he  was  here  himself  last  winter 
or  fall,  but  cannot  state  exactly  the  time.  Jarboe's  silence  on  questions  touching  his 
own  credibility  leaves  no  room  for  any  one  to  say  that  his  testimony  could  impeach 
Mr.  Evans,  whatever  he  might  swear. 

Miss  Anna  II .  Surratt  is  also  called  for  the  purpose  of  impeaching  Mr.  Evans.  It 
is  sufficient  to  say  of  her  testimony  on  that  point  that  she  swears  negatively  only  —  that 
she  does  not  see  either  of  the  persons  named  at  her  mother's  house.  This  testimony 
neither  disproves,  nor  does  it  even  tend  to  disprove,  the  fact  put  in  issue  by  Mr.  Evans. 
No  one  will  pretend,  whatever  the  form  of  her  expression  in  giving  her  testimony,  that 
she  could  say  more  than  that  she  did  not  know  the  fact,  as  it  was  impossible  that  she 
could  know  who  was,  or  who  was  not,  at  her  mother's  house,  casually,  at  a  period  so 
remote.  It  is  not  my  purpose,  neither  is  it  needful  here,  to  question  in  any  way  the 
integrity  of  this  young  woman. 

It  is  further  in  testimony  that  Samuel  A.  Mudd  was  here  on  the  3d  day  of  March 
last,  the  clay  preceding  the  inauguration,  when  Booth  was  to  strike  the  traitorous  blow; 
and  it  was,  doubtless,  only  by  the  interposition  of  that  God  who  stands  within  the 
shadow  and  keeps  watch  above  his  own,  that  the  victim  of  this  conspiracy  was  spared 
that  day  from  the  assassin's  hand  that  he  might  complete  his  work  and  see  the  salvation 
of  his  country  in  the  fall  of  Richmond  and  the  surrender  of  its  great  army.  Dr.  Mudd 
was  here  on  that  day  (the  3d  of  March)  to  abet,  to  encourage,  to  nerve  his  co-conspira 
tor  for  the  commission  of  this  great  crime.  He  was  carried  away  by  the  awful  purpose 
which  possessed  him,  and  rushed  into  the  room  of  Mr.  Norton,  at  the  National  Hotel,  in 
search  of  Booth,  exclaiming  excitedly:  "  I'm  mistaken;  I  thought  this  was  Mr.  Booth's, 
room."  He  is  told  Mr.  Booth  is  above,  on  the  next  floor.  He  is  followed  by  Mr. 
Norton,  because  of  his  rude  and  excited  behavior,  and  being  followed,  conscious  of  his. 
guilty  errand,  he  turns  away,  afraid  of  himself  and  afraid  to  be  found  in  concert  with 
his  fellow  confederate.  Mr.  Norton  identifies  the  prisoner,  and  has  no  doubt  that 
Samuel  A.  Mudd  is  the  man. 


3  So  APPENDIX. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Evans  also  swears  that,  after  the  1st  and  before  the  4th  day  of  March 
last,  he  is  certain  that  within  that  time,  and  on  the  2d  or  3d  of  March,  he  saw  Dr.  Mudd 
drive  into  Washington  City.  The  endeavor  is  made  by  the  accused  in  order  to  break 
down  this  witness,  by  proving  another  alibi.  The  sister  of  the  accused,  Miss  Fanny 
Mudd,  is  called.  She  testifies  that  she  saw  the  prisoner  at  breakfast  in  her  father's 
house,  on  the  2d  of  March,  about  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  not  again  until  the 
3d  of  March  at  noon.  Mrs.  Emily  Mudd  swears  substantially  to  the  same  statement. 
Betty  Washington,  called  for  the  accused,  swears  that  he  was  at  home  all  day  at  work 
with  her  on  the  2d  of  March,  and  took  breakfast  at  home.  P'rank  Washington  swears 
that  Mudd  was  at  home  all  day;  that  he  saw  him  when  he  first  came  out  in  the  morning 
about  sunrise  from  his  own  house,  and  knows  that  he  was  there  all  day  with  them. 
Which  is  correct,  the  testimony  of  his  sisters  or  the  testimony  of  his  servants?  The 
sisters  say  that  he  was  at  their  father's  house  for  breakfast  on  the  morning  of  the  2d  of 
March;  the  servants  say  he  was  at  home  for  breakfast  with  them  on  that  day.  If  this 
testimony  is  followed,  it  proves  one  alibi  too  much.  It  is  impossible,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  that  the  testimony  of  all  these  four  witnesses  can  be  true. 

Seeing  this  weakness  in  the  testimony  brought  to  prove  this  second  alibi,  the 
endeavor  is  next  made  to  discredit  Mr.  Norton  for  truth;  and  two  witnesses,  not  more, 
are  called,  who  testify  that  his  reputation  for  truth  has  suffered  by  contested  litigation 
between  one  of  the  impeaching  witnesses  and  others.  Four  witnesses  are  called,  who 
testify  that  Mr.  Norton's  reputation  for  truth  is  very  good;  that  he  is  a  man  of  high 
character  for  truth,  and  entitled  to  be  believed  whether  he  speaks  under  the  obligation 
of  an  oath  or  not.  The  late  Postmaster  General,  Hon.  Horatio  King,  not  only  sustains 
Mr.  Norton  as  a  man  of  good  reputation  for  truth,  but  expressly  corroborates  his  testi 
mony,  by  stating  that  in  March  last,  about  the  4th  of  March,  Mr.  Norton  told  him  the 
same  fact  to  which  he  swears  here :  that  a  man  came  into  his  room  under  excitement, 
alarmed  his  sister,  was  followed  out  by  himself,  and  went  down  stairs  instead  of  going 
up;  and  that  Mr.  Norton  told  him  this  before  the  assassination,  and  about  the  time  of  the 
inauguration.  What  motive  had  Mr.  Norton  at  that  time  to  fabricate  this  statement? 
It  detracts  nothing  from  his  testimony  that  he  did  not  at  that  time  mention  the  name  of 
this  man  to  his  friend,  Mr.  King;  because  it  appears  from  his  testimony  —  and  there  is 
none  to  question  the  truthfulness  of  his  statement  —  that  at  that  time  he  did  not  know 
his  name.  Neither  does  it  take  from  the  force  of  this  testimony,  that  Mr.  Norton  did 
not,  in  communicating  this  matter  to  Mr.  King,  make  mention  of  Booth's  name; 
because  there  was  nothing  in  the  transaction,  at  the  time,  he  being  ignorant  of  the  name 
of  Mudd,  and  equally  ignorant  of  the  conspiracy  between  Mudd  and  Booth,  to  give  the 
least  occasion  for  any  mention  of  Booth  or  of  the  transaction  further  than  as  he  detailed 
it.  Writh  such  corroboration,  who  can  doubt  the  fact  that  Mudd  did  enter  the  room  of 
Mr.  Norton,  and  was  followed  by  him,  on  the  3d  of  March  last?  Can  he  be  mistaken 
in  the  man?  Whoever  looks  at  the  prisoner  carefully  once  will  be  sure  to  recognize 
him  again. 

For  the  present  I  pass  from  the  consideration  of  the  testimony  showing  Dr.  Mudd's 
connection  with  Booth  in  this  conspiracy,  with  the  remark  that  it  is  in  evidence,  and  I 
think  established,  both  by  the  testimony  adduced  by  the  prosecution  and  that  by  the 
prisoner,  that  since  the  commencement  of  this  rebellion,  John  H.  Surratt  visited  the 
prisoner's  house;  that  he  concealed  Surratt  and  other  rebels  and  traitors  in  the  woods 
near  his  house,  where  for  several  days  he  furnished  them  with  food  and  bedding;  that 
the  shelter  of  the  woods  by  night  and  by  day  was  the  only  shelter  that  the  prisoner  dare 


APPENDIX.  381 

furnish  these  friends  of  his;  that  in  November,  Booth  visited  him  and  remained  over 
night;  that  he  accompanied  Booth  at  that  time  to  Gardner's,  from  whom  he  purchased 
one  of  the  horses  used  on  the  night  of  the  assassination  to  aid  the  escape  of  one  of  his 
confederates;  that  the  prisoner  had  secret  interviews  with  Booth  and  Surratt,  as  sworn 
to  by  the  witness  Wiechmann,  in  the  National  Hotel,  whether  on  the  23d  of  December 
or  in  January  is  a  matter  of  entire  indifference;  that  he  rushed  into  Mr.  Norton's  room 
on  the  3d  of  March  in  search  of  Booth;  and  that  he  was  here  again  on  the  loth  of 
April,  four  days  before  the  murder  of  the  President.  Of  his  conduct  after  the  assassina 
tion  of  the  President,  which  is  confirmatory  of  all  this  —  his  conspiring  with  Booth  and 
his  sheltering,  concealing,  and  aiding  the  flight  of  his  co-conspirator,  this  felon  assassin 
—  I  shall  speak  hereafter,  leaving  him  for  the  present  with  the  remark  that  the  attempt 
to  prove  his  character  has  resulted  in  showing  him  in  sympathy  with  the  rebellion,  so 
cruel  that  he  shot  one  of  his  slaves  and  declared  his  purpose  to  send  several  of  them  to 
work  on  the  rebel  batteries  in  Richmond. 

What  others,  besides  Samuel  A.  Mudd  and  John  H.  Surratt  and  Lewis  Payne,  did 
Booth,  after  his  return  from  Canada,  induce  to  join  him  in  this  conspiracy  to  murder  the 
President,  the  Vice-President,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  Lieutenant  General,  with 
the  intent  thereby  to  aid  the  rebellion  and  overthrow  the  government  and  laws  of  the 
United  States? 

On  the  loth  of  February  the  prisoners  Arnold  and  O'Laughlin  came  to  Washington 
and  took  rooms  in  the  house  of  Mrs.  Vantyne;  were  armed;  were  then  visited 
frequently  by  John  Wilkes  Booth,  and  alone;  were  occasionally  absent  when  Booth 
called,  who  seemed  anxious  for  their  return  —  would  sometimes  leave  notes  for  them, 
and  sometimes  a  request  that  when  they  came  in  they  should  be  told  to  come  to  the 
stable.  On  the  iSth  of  March  last,  when  Booth  played  in  "The  Apostate,"  the 
witness,  Mrs.  Vantyne,  received  from  O'Laughlin  complimentary  tickets.  These 
persons  remained  there  until  the  2oth  of  March.  They  were  visited,  so  far  as  the 
witness  knows,  during  their  stay  at  her  house  only  by  Booth,  save  that  on  a  single 
occasion  an  unknown  man  came  to  see  them,  and  remained  with  them  over  night. 
They  told  the  witness  they  were  in  the  "  oil  business."  With  Mudd,  the  guilty  purpose 
was  sought  to  be  concealed  by  declaring  that  he  was  in  the  "land  business";  with 
O'Laughlin  and  Arnold  it  was  attempted  to  be  concealed  by  the  pretence  that  they 
were  in  the  "  oil  business."  Booth,  it  is  proved,  had  closed  up  all  connection  with  oil 
business  last  September.  There  is  not  a  word  of  testimony  to  show  that  the  accused, 
O'Laughlin  and  Arnold,  ever  invested  or  sought  to  invest,  in  any  way  or  to  any 
amount,  in  the  oil  business;  their  silly  words  betray  them;  they  forgot  when  they 
uttered  that  false  statement  that  truth  is  strong,  next  to  the  Almighty,  and  that  their 
crime  must  find  them  out  was  the  irrevocable  and  irresistible  law  of  nature  and  of 
nature's  God. 

One  of  their  co-conspirators,  known  as  yet  only  to  the  guilty  parties  to  this  damnable 
plot  and  to  the  Infinite,  who  will  unmask  and  avenge  all  blood-guiltiness,  comes  to  bear 
witness,  unwittingly,  against  them.  This  unknown  conspirator,  who  dates  his  letter  at 
South  Branch  Bridge,  April  6,  1865,  mailed  and  postmarked  Cumberland,  Md.,  and 
addressed  to  John  Wilkes  Booth,  by  his  initials,  "  J.  W.  B.,  National  Hotel,  Washing 
ton,  D.C.,"  was  also  in  the  "  oil  speculation."  In  that  letter  he  says:  — 

"  FRIEND  WILKES: —  I  received  yours  of  March  I2th,  and  reply  as  soon  as  practica 
ble.  I  saw  French,  Brady,  and  others  about  the  oil  speculation.  The  subscription  to 
the  stock  amounts  to  eight  thousand  dollars,  and  I  add  one  thousand  myself,  which  is 


382  APPENDIX. 

about  all  I  can  stand.  Now,  when  you  sink  your  well,  go  deep  enough;  don't  fail; 
everything  depends  upon  you  and  your  helpers.  If  you  cannot  get  through  on  your  trip 
after  you  strike  oil,  strike  through  Thornton  gap  and  across  by  Capon,  Romney,  and 
down  the  Branch.  I  can  keep  you  safe  from  all  hardships  for  a  year.  I  am  clear  of 
all  surveillance  now  that  infernal  Purdy  is  beat. 

"  I  send  this  by  Tom,  and  if  he  don't  get  drunk  you  will  get  it  the  Qth.  At  all 
events,  it  cannot  be  understood 'if  lost. 

"  No  more,  only  Jake  will  be  at  Green's  with  the  funds.       (Signed)       "  LON." 

That  this  letter  is  not  a  fabrication  is  made  apparent  by  the  testimony  of  Purdy, 
whose  name  occurs  in  the  letter.  He  testified  that  he  had  been  a  detective  in  the  gov 
ernment  service,  and  that  he  had  been  falsely  accused,  as  the  letter  recites,  and  put 
under  arrest;  that  there  was  a  noted  rebel,  by  the  name  of  Green,  living  at  Thornton 
gap;  that  there  was  a  servant,  who  drank,  known  as  "Tom,"  in  the  neighborhood  of 
South  Branch  Bridge;  that  there  is  an  obscure  route  through  the  gap,  and  as  described 
in  the  letter;  and  that  a  man  commonly  called  "  Lon  "  lives  at  South  Branch  Bridge. 
If  the  court  are  satisfied  —  and  it  is  for  them  to  judge  —  that  this  letter  was  written 
before  the  assassination,  as  it  purports  to  have  been,  and  on  the  day  of  its  date,  there 
can  be  no  question  with  any  one  who  reads  it  that  the  writer  was  in  the  conspiracy, 
and  knew  that  the  time  of  its  execution  drew  nigh.  If  a  conspirator,  every  word  of 
its  contents  is  evidence  against  every  other  party  to  this  conspiracy. 

Who  can  fail  to  understand  this  letter?  His  words,  "go  deep  enough,"  "don't 
fail,"  "everything  depends  on  you  and  your  helpers,"  "if  you  can't  get  through  on 
your  trip  after  you  strike  oil,  strike  through  Thornton  gap,"  etc.,  and  "  I  can  keep  you 
safe  from  all  hardships  for  a  year,"  necessarily  imply  that  when  he  "  strikes  m/"  there 
will  be  an  occasion  for  a  flight ;  that  a  trip,  or  route,  has  already  been  determined 
upon;  that  he  may  not  be  able  to  go  through  by  that  route;  in  which  event  he  is  to 
strike  for  Thornton  gap,  and  across  by  Capon  and  Romney,  and  down  the  branch,  for 
the  shelter  which  his  co-conspirator  offers  him.  "  I  am  clear  of  all  serveillance  now  " 
—  does  any  one  doubt  that  the  man  who  wrote  those  words  wished  to  assure  Booth  that 
he  was  no  longer  watched,  and  that  Booth  could  safely  hide  with  him  from  his  pursuers? 
Does  any  one  doubt,  from  the  further  expression  in  this  letter,  "  Jake  will  be  at  Green's 
with  the  funds,"  that  this  was  a  part  of  the  price  of  blood,  or  that  the  eight  thousand 
dollars  subscribed  by  others,  and  the  one  thousand  additional,  subscribed  by  the  writer, 
were  also  a  part  of  the  price  to  be  paid  ? 

"  The  oil  business,"  which  was  the  declared  business  of  O'Laughlin  and  Arnold, 
was  the  declared  business  of  the  infamous  writer  of  this  letter;  was  the  declared  busi 
ness  of  John  H.  Surratt;  was  the  declared  business  of  Booth  himself,  as  explained  to 
Chester  and  Payne;  was  "  the  business  "  referred  to  in  his  telegrams  to  O'Laughlin,  and 
meant  the  murder  of  the  President,  of  his  cabinet,  and  of  General  Grant.  The  first  of 
these  telegrams  is  dated  Washington,  I3th  March,  and  is  addressed  to  M.  O'Laughlin, 
No.  57  North  Exeter  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.,  and  is  as  follows:  "Don't  you  fear  to 
neglect  your  business;  you  had  better  come  on  at  once.  J.  Booth."  The  tele 
graphic  operator,  Hoffman,  who  sent  this  despatch  from  Washington,  swears  that  John 
Wilkes  Booth  delivered  it  to  him  in  person  on  the  day  of  its  date;  and  the  handwriting 
of  the  original  telegram  is  established  beyond  question  to  be  that  of  Booth.  The  other 
telegram  is  dated  Washington,  March  27,  addressed,  "  M.  O'Laughlin,  Esq.,  57  North 
Exeter  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.,"  and  is  as  follows:  "  Get  word  to  Sam.  Come  on  with 
or  without  him  on  Wednesday  morning.  We  sell  that  day  sure;  don't  fail.  J.  Wilkes 
Booth."  The  original  of  this  telegram  is  also  proved  to  be  in  the  handwriting  of 


APPEND  fX.  383 

Booth.  The  sale  referred  to  in  this  last  telegram  was  doubtless  the  murder  of  the 
President  and  others  —  the  "oil  speculation,"  in  which  the  writer  of  the  letter  from 
South  Branch  Bridge,  dated  April  6,  had  taken  a  thousand  dollars,  and  in  which  Booth 
said  there  was  money,  and  Sanders  said  there  was  money,  and  Atzerodt  said  there  was 
money.  The  words  of  this  telegram,  "get  word  to  Sam,"  mean  Samuel  Arnold,  his 
co-conspirator,  who  had  been  with  him  during  all  his  stay  in  Washington,  at  Mrs.  Van- 
tyne's.  These  parties  to  this  conspiracy,  after  they  had  gone  to  Baltimore,  had  addi 
tional  correspondence  with  Booth,  which  the  court  must  infer  had  relation  to  carrying 
out  the  purposes  of  their  confederation  and  agreement.  The  colored  witness,  Williams, 
testifies  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  handed  him  a  letter  for  Michael  O'Laughlin,  and  another 
for  Samuel  Arnold,  in  Baltimore,  some  time  in  March  last;  one  of  which  he  delivered 
to  O'Laughlin  at  the  theatre  in  Baltimore,  and  the  other  to  a  lady  at  the  door  where 
Arnold  boarded  in  Baltimore. 

Their  agreement  and  co-operation  in  the  common  object  having  been  thus  estab 
lished,  the  letter  written  to  Booth  by  the  prisoner  Arnold,  dated  March  27,  1865,  the 
handwriting  of  which  is  proved  before  the  court,  and  which  was  found  in  Booth's  pos 
session  after  the  assassination,  becomes  testimony  against  O'Laughlin,  as  well  as  against 
the  writer  Arnold,  because  it  is  an  act  done  in  furtherance  of  their  combination.  That 
letter  is  as  follows:  — 

"DEAR  JOHN:  — Was  business  so  important  that  you  could  not  remain  in  Baltimore 
till  I  saw  you?  I  came  in  as  soon  as  I  could,  but  found  you  had  gone  to  Washington. 
I  called  also  to  see  Mike,  but  learned  from  his  mother  he  had  gone  out  with  you  and 
had  not  returned.  I  concluded,  therefore,  he  had  gone  with  you.  How  inconsiderate 
you  have  been  !  When  I  left  you,  you  stated  that  we  would  not  meet  in  a  month  or  so, 
and  therefore  I  made  application  for  employment,  an  answer  to  which  I  shall  receive 
during  the  week.  I  told  my  parents  I  had  ceased  with  you.  Can  I,  then,  under  exist 
ing  circumstances,  act  as  you  request?  You  know  full  well  that  the  government 
suspicions  something  is  going  on  there,  therefore  the  undertaking  is  becoming  more 
complicated.  Why  not,  for  the  present,  desist?  —  for  various  reasons,  which,  if  you 
look  into,  you  can  readily  see  without  my  making  any  mention  thereof.  You,  nor  any 
one,  can  censure  me  for  my  present  course.  You  have  been  its  cause,  for  how  can  I 
now  come  after  telling  them  I  had  left  you?  Suspicion  rests  upon  me  now  from  my 
whole  family,  and  even  parties  in  the  country.  I  will  be  compelled  to  leave  home  any 
how,  and  how  soon  I  care  not.  None,  no,  not  one,  were  more  in  favor  of  the  enter 
prise  than  myself,  and  to-day  would  be  there  had  you  not  done  as  you  have.  By  this  I 
mean  manner  of  proceeding.  I  am,  as  you  well  know,  in  need.  I  am,  you  may  say, 
in  rags,  whereas,  to-day,  I  ought  to  be  well  clothed.  I  do  not  feel  right  stalking  about 
with  means,  and  more  from  appearances  a  beggar.  I  feel  my  dependence.  But  even 
all  this  would  have  been,  and  was,  forgotten,  for  I  was  one  with  you.  Time  more  pro 
pitious  will  arrive  yet.  Do  not  act  rashly  or  in  haste.  I  would  prefer  your  first  query, 
*  Go  and  see  how  it  will  be  taken  in  Richmond,'  and  ere  long  I  shall  be  better  prepared 
to  again  he  -,vit't  you.  I  dislike  writing.  Would  sooner  verbally  make  known  my  views. 
Yet  your  now  waiting  causes  me  thus  to  proceed.  Do  not  in  anger  peruse  this.  Weigh 
all  I  have  said,  and,  as  a  rational  man  and  a  friend,  you  cannot  censure  or  upbraid  my 
conduct.  I  sincerely  trust  this,  nor  aught  else  that  shall  or  may  occur,  will  ever  be  an 
obstacle  to  obliterate  our  former  friendship  and  attachment.  Write  me  to  Baltimore, 
as  I  expect  to  be  in  about  Wednesday  or  Thursday;  or,  if  you  can  possibly  come  on,  I 
will  Tuesday  meet  you  at  Baltimore  at  B. 

"  Ever  I  subscribe  myself,  your  friend,  "  SAM." 

Here  is  the  confession  of  the  prisoner  Arnold,  that  he  was  one  with  Booth  in  this 
conspiracy;  the  further  confession  that  they  are  suspected  by  the  government  of  their 
country,  and  the  acknowledgment  that  since  they  parted  Booth  had  communicated, 
among  other  things,  a  suggestion  which  leads  to  the  remark  in  this  letter,  "I  would 


384  APPENDIX. 

prefer  your  first  query,  '  Go  and  see  how  it  will  be  taken  at  Richmond,'  and  ere  long  F 
shall  be  better  prepared  to  again  be  with  you ."  This  is  a  declaration  that  affects  Arnold, 
Booth,  and  O'Laughlin  alike,  if  the  court  are  satisfied,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  they 
can  have  doubt  on  the  subject,  that  the  matter  to  be  referred  to  Richmond  is  the  matter 
of  the  assassination  of  the  President  and  others,  to  effect  which  these  parties  had  pre 
viously  agreed  and  conspired  together.  It  is  a  matter  in  testimony,  by  the  declaration 
of  John  H.  Surratt,  who  is  as  clearly  proved  to  have  been  in  this  conspiracy  and  murder 
as  Booth  himself,  that  about  the  very  date  of  this  letter,  the  27th  of  March,  upon  the 
suggestion  of  Booth,  and  with  his  knowledge  and  consent,  he  went  to  Richmond,  not 
only  to  see  "how  it  would  be  taken  there,"  but  to  get  funds  with  which  to  carry  out 
the  enterprise,  as  Booth  had  already  declared  to  Chester  in  one  of  his  last  interviews, 
when  he  said  that  he  or  "  some  one  of  the  party  "  would  be  constrained  to  go  to  Rich 
mond  for  funds  to  carry  out  the  conspiracy.  Surratt  returned  from  Richmond,  bringing 
with  him  some  part  of  the  money  for  which  he  went,  and  was  then  going  to  Canada, 
and,  as  the  testimony  discloses,  bringing  with  him  the  despatches  from  Jefferson  Davis 
to  his  chief  agents  in  Canada,  which,  as  Thompson  declared  to  Conover,  made  the 
proposed  assassination  "all  right."  Surratt,  after  seeing  the  parties  here,  left  imme 
diately  for  Canada  and  delivered  his  despatches  to  Jacob  Thompson,  the  agent  of 
Jefferson  Davis.  This  was  done  by  Surratt  upon  the  suggestion,  or  in  exact  accordance 
with  the  suggestion,  of  Arnold,  made  on  the  27th  of  March  in  his  letter  to  Booth  just 
read,  and  yet  you  are  gravely  told  that  four  weeks  before  the  27th  of  March  Arnold 
had  abandoned  the  conspiracy. 

Surratt  reached  Canada  with  these  despatches,  as  we  have  seen,  about  the  6th  or  7th 
of  April  last,  when  the  witness  Conover  saw  them  delivered  to  Jacob  Thompson  and 
heard  their  contents  stated  by  Thompson,  and  the  declaration  from  him  that  these 
despatches  made  it  "all  right."  That  Surratt  was  at  that  time  in  Canada  is  not 
only  established  by  the  testimony  of  Conover,  but  it  is  also  in  evidence  that  he  told 
Wiechmann  on  the  3d  of  April  that  he  was  going  to  Canada,  and  on  that  day  left  for 
Canada,  and  afterwards,  two  letters  addressed  by  Surratt  over  the  fictitious  signature  of 
John  Harrison,  to  his  mother  and  to  Miss  Ward,  dated  at  Montreal,  were  received  by 
them  on  the  I4th  of  April,  as  testified  by  Wiechmann  and  by  Miss  Ward,  a  witness 
called  for  the  defense.  Thus  it  appears  that  the  condition  named  by  Arnold  in  his 
letter  had  been  complied  with.  Booth  had  "gone  to  Richmond,"  in  the  person  of 
Surratt,  "to  see  how  it  would  be  taken."  The  rebel  authorities  at  Richmond  had 
approved  it,  the  agent  had  returned;  and  Arnold  was,  in  his  own  words,  thereby  the 
better  prepared  to  rejoin  Booth  in  the  prosecution  of  this  conspiracy. 

To  this  end  Arnold  went  to  Fortress  Monroe.  As  his  letter  expressly  declares, 
Booth  said  when  they  parted,  "  we  would  not  meet  in  a  month  or  so,  and  therefore  I 
made  application  for  employment  —  an  answer  to  which  I  shall  receive  during  the  week." 
He  did  receive  the  answer  that  week  from  Fortress  Monroe,  and  went  there  to  await 
the  "more  propitious  time,"  bearing  with  him  the  weapon  of  death  which  Booth  had 
provided,  and  ready  to  obey  his  call,  as  the  act  had  been  approved  at  Richmond  and 
been  made  "  all  right."  Acting  upon  the  same  fact  that  the  conspiracy  had  been 
approved  in  Richmond  and  the  funds  provided,  O'Laughlin  came  to  Washington  to 
identify  General  Grant,  the  person  who  was  to  become  the  victim  of  his  violence  in  the 
final  consummation  of  this  crime  —  General  Grant,  whom,  as  is  averred  in  the  specifi 
cation,  it  had  become  the  part  of  O'Laughlin  by  his  agreement  in  this  conspiracy  to  kill 
and  murder.  On  the  evening  preceding  the  assassination  —  the  1 3th  of  April  — by  the 


APPENDIX.  385 

testimony  of  three  reputable  witnesses,  against  whose  truthfulness  not  one  word  is 
uttered  here  or  elsewhere,  O'Laughlin  went  into  the  house  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
where  General  Grant  then  was,  and  placed  himself  in  position  in  the  hall  where  he 
could  see  him,  having  declared  before  he  reached  that  point,  to  one  of  these  witnesses, 
that  he  wished  to  see  General  Grant.  The  house  was  brilliantly  illuminated  at  the  time; 
two,  at  least,  of  the  witnesses  conversed  with  the  accused  and  the  other  stood  very  near 
to  him,  took  special  notice  of  his  conduct,  called  attention  to  it,  and  suggested  that  he 
be  put  out  of  the  house,  and  he  was  accordingly  put  out  by  one  of  the  witnesses.  These 
witnesses  are  confident,  and  have  no  doubt,  and  so  swear  upon  their  oaths,  that  Michael 
O'Laughlin  is  the  man  who  was  present  on  that  occasion.  There  is  no  denial  on  the 
part  of  the  accused  that  he  was  in  Washington  during  the  day  and  during  the  night  of 
April  13,  and  also  during  the  day  and  during  the  night  of  the  I4th;  and  yet,  to  get  rid 
of  this  testimony,  recourse  is  had  to  that  common  device  —  an  alibi;  a  device  never,, 
I  may  say,  more  frequently  resorted  to  than  in  this  trial.  But  what  an  alibi  !  Nobody 
is  called  to  prove  it,  save  some  men  who,  by  their  own  testimony,  were  engaged  in 
a  drunken  debauch  through  the  evening.  A  reasonable  man  who  reads  their  evidence 
can  hardly  be  expected  to  allow  it  to  outweigh  the  united  testimony  of  three  unimpeached 
and  unimpeachable  witnesses  who  were  clear  in  their  statements,  who  entertain  no  doubt 
of  the  truth  of  what  they  say,  whose  opportunities  to  know  were  full  and  complete,  and 
who  were  constrained  to  take  special  notice  of  the  prisoner  by  means  of  his  extraordi- 
aary  conduct. 

These  witnesses  describe  accurately  the  appearance,  stature,  and  complexion  of  the 
accused,  but  because  they  describe  his  clothing  as  dark  or  black,  it  is  urged  that  as  part 
of  his  clothing,  although  dark,  was  not  black,  the  witnesses  are  mistaken.  O'Laughlin 
and  his  drunken  companions  (one  of  whom  swears  that  he  drank  ten  times  that  even 
ing)  were  strolling  in  the  streets  and  in  the  direction  of  the  house  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  up  the  Avenue;  but  you  are  asked  to  believe  that  these  witnesses  could  not  be 
mistaken  in  saying  they  were  not  off  the  Avenue  above  Seventh  Street,  or  on  K  Street. 
I  venture  to  say  that  no  man  who  reads  their  testimony  can  determine  satisfactorily  all 
the  places  that  were  visited  by  O'Laughlin  and  his  drunken  associates  that  evening 
•from  seven  to  eleven  o'clock  P.M.  All  this  time,  from  seven  to  eleven  o'clock  P.M., 
must  be  accounted  for  satisfactorily  before  the  alibi  can  be  established.  Laughlan  does 
not  account  for  all  the  time,  for  he  left  O'Laughlin  after  seven  o'clock,  and  rejoined 
him,  as  he  says,  "  I  suppose  about  eight  o'clock."  Grillet  did  not  meet  him  until 
half- past  ten,  and  then  only  casually  saw  him  in  passing  the  hotel.  May  not  Grillet 
have  been  mistaken  as  to  the  fact,  although  he  did  meet  O'Laughlin  after  eleven 
o'clock  the  same  evening,  as  he  swears? 

Purdy  swears  to  seeing  him  in  the  bar  with  Grillet  about  half-past  ten,  but,  as  we 
have  seen  by  Grillet's  testimony,  it  must  have  been  after  eleven  o'clock.  Murphy 
contradicts  as  to  time  both  Grillet  and  Purdy,  for  he  says  it  was  half -past  eleven  or 
twelve  o'clock  when  he  and  O'Laughlin  returned  to  Rullman's  from  Platz's,  and  Early 
swears  the  accused  went  from  Rullman's  to  Second  Street  to  a  dance  about  a  quarter- 
past  eleven  o'clock,  when  O'Laughlin  took  the  lead  in  the  dance  and  stayed  about  one 
hour.  I  follow  these  witnesses  no  further.  They  contradict  each  other,  and  do  not 
account  for  O'Laughlin  all  the  time  from  seven  to  eleven  o'clock.  I  repeat  that  no 
man  can  read  their  testimony  without  finding  contradictions  most  material  as  to  titney 
and  coming  to  the  conviction  that  they  utterly  fail  to  account  for  O'Laughlin's  where 
abouts  on  that  evening.  To  establish  an  alibi  the  witnesses  must  know  the  fact  and 


386 


APPENDIX. 


testify  to  it.  Laughlan,  Grillet,  Purdy,  Murphy,  and  Early  utterly  fail  to  prove  it,  aiul 
only  succeed  in  showing  that  they  did  not  know  where  O'Laughlin  was  all  this  time, 
and  that  some  of  them  were  grossly  mistaken  in  what  they  testified,  both  as  to  time  and 
place.  The  testimony  of  James  B.  Henderson  is  equally  unsatisfactory.  He  is  contra 
dicted  by  other  testimony  of  the  accused  as  to  place.  He  says  O'Laughlin  went  up  the 
Avenue  above  Seventh  Street,  but  that  he  did  not  go  to  Ninth  Street.  The  other  wit 
nesses  swear  he  went  to  Ninth  Street.  He  swears  he  went  to  Canterbury  about  nine 
o'clock,  after  going  back  from  Seventh  Street  to  Rullman's.  Laughlan  swears  that 
O'Laughlin  was  with  him  at  the  corner  of  the  Avenue  and  Ninth  Street  at  nine  o'clock, 
and  went  from  there  to  Canterbury,  while  Early  swears  that  O'Laughlin  went  up  as  far 
as  Eleventh  Street  and  returned  with  him  and  took  supper  at  Welcker's  about  eight 
o'clock.  If  these  witnesses  prove  an  alibi,  it  is  really  against  each  other.  It  is  folly 
to  pretend  that  they  prove  facts  which  make  it  impossible  that  O'Laughlin  could  have 
been  at  the  house  of  Secretary  Stanton,  as  three  witnesses  swear  he  was,  on  the  evening 
of  the  1 3th  of  April,  looking  for  General  Grant. 

Has  it  not,  by  the  testimony  thus  reviewed,  been  established  prima  facie  that  in  the 
months  of  February,  March,  and  April,  O'Laughlin  had  combined,  confederated,  and 
agreed  with  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  Samuel  Arnold  to  kill  and  murder  Abraham 
Lincoln,  William  H.  Seward,  Andrew  Johnson,  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant?  Is  it  not 
established,  beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt,  that  Booth  had  so  conspired  with  the  rebel 
agents  in  Canada  as  early  as  October  last;  that  he  was  in  search  of  agents  to  do  the 
work  on  pay,  in  the  interests  of  the  rebellion,  and  that  in  this  speculation  Arnold  and 
O'Laughlin  had  joined  as  early  as  February;  that  then,  and  after,  with  Booth  and 
Surratt,  they  were  in  the  "oil  business,"  which  was  the  business  of  assassination  by 
contract  as  a  speculation?  If  this  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  O'Laughlin  with  Arnold  is 
established  even  prima  facie,  the  declarations  and  acts  of  Arnold  and  Booth,  the  other 
conspirators,  in  furtherance  of  the  common  design,  is  evidence  against  O'Laughlin  as 
well  as  against  Arnold  himself  or  the  other  parties.  The  rule  of  law  is,  that  the  act  or 
declaration  of  one  conspirator,  done  in  pursuance  or  furtherance  of  the  common 
design,  is  the  act  or  declaration  of  all  the  conspirators. —  /  Wharton,  fob. 

The  letter,  therefore,  of  his  co-conspirator,  Arnold,  is  evidence  against  O'Laughlin, 
because  it  is  an  act  in  the  prosecution  of  the  common  conspiracy,  suggesting  what 
should  be  done  in  order  to  make  it  effective,  and  which  suggestion,  as  has  been  stated, 
was  followed  out.  The  defense  has  attempted  to  avoid  the  force  of  this  letter  by- 
reciting  the  statement  of  Arnold,  made  to  Homer  at  the  time  he  was  arrested,  in  which 
he  declared,  among  other  things,  that  the  purpose  was  to  abduct  President  Lincoln  and 
take  him  South;  that  it  was  to  be  done  at  the  theatre  by  throwing  the  President  out  of 
the  box  upon  the  floor  of  the  stage,  when  the  accused  was  to  catch  him.  The  very 
announcement  of  this  testimony  excited  derision  that  such  a  tragedy  meant  only  to  take 
the  President  and  carry  him  gently  away !  This  pigmy  to  catch  the  giant  as  the 
assassins  hurled  him  to  the  floor  from  an  elevation  of  twelve  feet !  The  court  has 
viewed  the  theatre,  and  must  be  satisfied  that  Booth,  in  leaping  from  the  President's 
box,  broke  his  limb.  The  court  cannot  fail  to  conclude  that  this  statement  of  Arnold 
was  but  another  silly  device,  like  that  of  the  "  oil  business,"  which,  for  the  time  being, 
he  employed  to  hide  from  the  knowledge  of  his  captor  the  fact  that  the  purpose  was  to 
murder  the  President.  No  man  can,  for  a  moment,  believe  that  any  one  of  these  con 
spirators  hoped  or  desired,  by  such  a  proceeding  as  that  stated  by  this  prisoner,  to  take 
the  President  alive  in  the  presence  of  thousands  assembled  in  the  theatre  after  he  had 


APPENDIX.  387 

been  thus  thrown  upon  the  floor  of  the  stage,  much  less  to  carry  him  through  the  city, 
through  the  lines  of  your  army,  and  deliver  him  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels.  No  such 
purpose  was  expressed  or  hinted  by  the  conspirators  in  Canada,  who  commissioned 
Booth  to  let  these  assassinations  on  contract.  I  shall  waste  not  a  moment  more  in 
combatting  such  an  absurdity. 

Arnold  does  confess  that  he  was  a  conspirator  with  Booth  in  this  purposed  murder; 
that  Booth  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Dr.  Mudd;  that  Booth,  O'Laughlin, 
Atzerodt,  Surratt,  a  man  with  an  alias  "  Mosby,"  and  another  whom  he  does  not  know, 
and  himself,  were  parties  to  this  conspiracy,  and  that  Booth  had  furnished  them  all 
with  arms.  He  concludes  this  remarkable  statement  to  Homer  with  the  declaration 
that  at  that  time,  to  wit,  the  first  week  of  March,  or  four  weeks  before  he  went  to 
Fortress  Monroe,  he  left  the  conspiracy,  and  that  Booth  told  him  to  sell  his  arms  if  he 
chose.  This  is  sufficiently  answered  by  the  fact  that,  four  weeks  afterwards,  he  wrote 
his  letter  to  Booth,  which  was  found  in  Booth's  possession  after  the  assassination,  sug 
gesting  to  him  what  to  do  in  order  to  make  the  conspiracy  a  success,  and  by  the  further 
fact  that  at  the  very  moment  he  uttered  these  declarations  part  of  his  arms  were  found 
upon  his  person,  and  the  rest  not  disposed  of,  but  at  his  father's  house. 

A  party  to  a  treasonable  and  murderous  conspiracy  against  the  government  of  his 
country  cannot  be  held  to  have  abandoned  it  because  he  makes  such  a  declaration  as 
this,  when  he  is  in  the  hands  of  the  officer  of  the  law,  arrested  for  his  crime,  and 
especially  when  his  declaration  is  in  conflict  with  and  expressly  contradicted  by  his 
written  acts,  and  unsupported  by  any  conduct  of  his  which  becomes  a  citizen  and  a 
man. 

If  he  abondoned  the  conspiracy,  why  did  he  not  make  known  the  fact  to  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  his  constitutional  advisers  that  these  men,  armed  with  the  weapons  of 
assassination,  were  daily  lying  in  wait  for  their  lives?  To  pretend  that  a  man  who  thus 
conducts  himself  for  weeks  after  the  pretended  abandonment,  volunteering  advice  for 
the  successful  prosecution  of  the  conspiracy,  the  evidence  of  which  is  in  writing,  and 
about  which  there  can  be  no  mistake,  has,  in  fact,  abandoned  it,  is  to  insult  the  com 
mon  understanding  of  men.  O'Laughlin  having  conspired  with  Arnold  to  do  this 
murder,  is,  therefore,  as  much  concluded  by  the  letter  of  Arnold  of  the  2;th  of  March 
as  is  Arnold  himself.  The  further  testimony  touching  O'Laughlin,  that  of  Streett, 
establishes  the  fact  that  about  the  1st  of  April  he  saw  him  in  confidential  conversation 
with  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  in  this  city,  on  the  Avenue.  Another  man,  whom  the  witness 
does  not  know,  was  in  conversation.  O'Laughlin  called  Streett  to  one  side,  and  told 
him  Booth  was  busily  engaged  with  his  friend  —  was  talking  privately  to  his  friend. 
This  remark  of  O'Laughlin  is  attempted  to  be  accounted  for,  but  the  attempt  failed; 
his  counsel  taking  the  pains  to  ask  what  induced  O'Laughlin  to  make  the  remark, 
received  the  fit  reply:  "I  did  not  see  the  interior  of  Mr.  O'Laughlin's  mind;  I 
cannot  tell."  It  is  the  province  of  this  court  to  infer  why  that  remark  was  made  and 
what  it  signified. 

That  John  H.  Surratt,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  David  E.  Herold,  and 
Louis  Payne  entered  into  this  conspiracy  with  Booth,  is  so  very  clear  upon  the  testi 
mony  that  little  time  need  be  occupied  in  bringing  again  before  the  court  the  evidence 
which  establishes  it.  By  the  testimony  of  Wiechmann,  we  find  Atzerodt  in  February 
at  the  house  of  the  prisoner,  Mrs.  Surratt.  He  inquired  for  her  or  for  John  when  he 
came  and  remained  over  night.  After  this  and  before  the  assassination  he  visited  there 
frequently,  and  at  that  house  bore  the  name  of  "Port  Tobacco,"  the  name  by  which 


388  APPENDIX. 

he  was  known  in  Canada  among  the  conspirators  there.  The  same  witness  testifies  that 
he  met  him  on  the  street,  when  he  said  he  was  going  to  visit  Payne  at  the  Herndon 
House,  and  also  accompanied  him,  along  with  Herold  and  John  H.  Surratt,  to  the 
theatre  in  March  to  hear  Booth  play  in  "The  Apostate."  At  the  Pennsylvania  House, 
one  or  two  weeks  previous  to  the  assassination,  Atzerodt  made  the  statement  to  Lieutenant 
Keim,  when  asking  for  his  knife  which  he  had  left  in  his  room,  a  knife  corresponding 
in  size  with  the  one  exhibited  in  court,  "  I  want  that;  if  one  fails  I  want  the  other," 
wearing  at  the  same  time  his  revolver  at  his  belt.  He  also  stated  to  Greenawalt,  of  the 
Pennsylvania  House,  in  March,  that  he  was  nearly  broke,  but  had  friends  enough  to 
give  him  as  much  money  as  would  see  him  through,  adding,  "I  am  going  away  some  of 
these  days,  but  will  return  with  as  much  gold  as  will  keep  me  all  my  lifetime."  Mr. 
Greenawalt  also  says  that  Booth  had  frequent  interviews  with  Atzerodt,  sometimes  in 
the  room,  and  at  other  times  Booth  would  walk  in  and  immediately  go  out,  Atzerodt 
following. 

John  M.  Lloyd  testifies  that  some  six  weeks  before  the  assassination,  Herold, 
Atzerodt,  and  John  H.  Surratt  came  to  his  house  at  Surrattsville,  bringing  with  them 
two  Spencer  carbines  with  ammunition,  also  a  rope  and  wrench.  Surratt  asked  the 
witness  to  take  care  of  them  and  to  conceal  the  carbines.  Surratt  took  him  into  a  room 
in  the  house,  it  being  his  mother's  house,  and  showed  the  witness  where  to  put  the 
carbines,  between  the  joists  on  the  second  floor.  The  carbines  were  put  there,  accord 
ing  to  his  directions,  and  concealed.  Marcus  P.  Norton  saw  Atzerodt  in  conversation 
with  Booth  at  the  National  Hotel  about  the  2d  or  3d  of  March;  the  conversation  was 
confidential,  and  the  witness  accidentally  heard  them  talking  in  regard  to  President 
Johnson,  and  say  that  "the  class  of  witnesses  would  be  of  that  character  that  there 
could  be  little  proven  by  them."  This  conversation  may  throw  some  light  on  the  fact 
that  Atzerodt  was  found  in  possession  of  Booth's  bank  book  ! 

Colonel  Nevens  testifies  that  on  the  1 2th  of  April  last  he  saw  Atzerodt  at  the  Kirk- 
wood  House;  that  Atzerodt  there  asked  him,  a  stranger,  if  he  knew  where  Vice-Presi 
dent  Johnson  was,  and  where  Mr.  Johnson's  room  was.  Colonel  Nevens  showed  him 
where  the  room  of  the  Vice-President  was,  and  told  him  that  the  Vice-President  was- 
then  at  dinner.  Atzerodt  then  looked  into  the  dining-room  where  Vice-President  John 
son  was  dining  alone.  Robert  R.  Jones,  the  clerk  at  the  Kirkwood  House,  states  that 
on  the  I4th,  the  day  of  the  murder,  two  days  after  this,  Atzerodt  registered  his  name 
at  the  hotel,  G.  A.  Atzerodt,  and  took  No.  126,  retaining  the  room  that  day,  and  carry 
ing  away  the  key.  In  this  room,  after  the  assassination,  were  found  the  knife  and 
revolver  with  which  he  intended  to  murder  the  Vice-President. 

The  testimony  of  all  these  witnesses  leaves  no  doubt  that  the  prisoner,  George  A. 
Atzerodt,  entered  into  this  conspiracy  with  Booth;  that  he  expected  to  receive  a  large 
compensation  for  the  service  that  he  would  render  in  its  execution;  that  he  had  under 
taken  the  assassination  of  the  Vice-President  for  a  price;  that  he,  with  Surratt  and 
Herold,  rendered  the  important  service  of  depositing  the  arms  and  ammunition  to  be 
used  by  Booth  and  his  confederates  as  a  protection  in  their  flight  after  the  conspiracy 
had  been  executed;  and  that  he  was  careful  to  have  his  intended  victim  pointed  out  to 
him,  and  the  room  he  occupied  in  the  hotel,  so  that  when  he  came  to  perform  his  horrid 
work  he  would  know  precisely  where  to  go  and  whom  to  strike. 

I  take  no  further  notice  now  of  the  preparation  which  this  prisoner  made  for  the 
successful  execution  of  this  part  of  the  traitorous  and  murderous  design.  The  question 
is,  Hid  he  enter  into  this  conspiracy?  His  language  overheard  by  Mr.  Norton  excludes. 


APPENDIX.  389 

every  other  conclusion.  Vice-President  Johnson's  name  was  mentioned  in  that  secret 
conversation  with  Booth,  and  the  very  suggestive  expression  was  made  between  them 
that  "  little  could  be  proved  by  the  witnesses."  His  confession  in  his  defense  is  con 
clusive  of  his  guilt. 

That  Payne  was  in  this  conspiracy  is  confessed  in  the  defense  made  by  his  counsel, 
and  is  also  evident,  from  the  facts  proved,  that  when  the  conspiracy  was  being  organized 
in  Canada  by  Thompson,  Sanders,  Tucker,  Cleary,  and  Clay,  this  man  Payne  stood  at 
the  door  of  Thompson,  was  recommended  and  indorsed  by  Clay  with  the  words,  "We 
trust  him";  that  after  coming  hither  he  first  reported  himself  at  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Mary  E.  Surratt,  inquired  for  her  and  for  John  II.  Surratt,  remained  there  for  four 
•days,  having  conversation  with  both  of  them;  having  provided  himself  with  means  of 
•disguise,  was  also  supplied  with  pistols  and  a  knife,  such  as  he  afterwards  used,  and 
spurs,  preparatory  to  his  flight;  was  seen  with  John  H.  Surratt,  practicing  with  knives 
such  as  those  employed  in  this  deed  of  assassination  and  now  before  the  court;  was 
afterwards  provided  with  lodging  at  the  Herndon  House,  at  the  instance  of  Surratt; 
-was  visited  there  by  Atzerodt,  and  attended  Booth  and  Surratt  to  Ford's  Theatre,  occu 
pying  with  those  parties  the  box,  as  I  believe  and  which  we  may  readily  infer,  in  which 
the  President  was  afterwards  murdered. 

If  further  testimony  be  wanting  that  he  had  entered  into  the  conspiracy,  it  may  be 
found  in  the  fact  sworn  to  by  Wiechmann,  whose  testimnoy  no  candid  man  will  dis 
credit,  that  about  the  2Oth  of  March,  Mrs.  Surratt,  in  great  excitement  and  weeping, 
said  that  her  son  John  had  gone  away  not  to  return,  when,  about  three  hours  subse 
quently,  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  John  H.  Surratt  reappeared,  came  rushing 
in  a  state  of  frenzy  into  the  room,  in  his  mother's  house,  armed,  declaring  he  would 
shoot  whoever  came  into  the  room,  and  proclaiming  that  his  prospects  were  blasted  and 
his  hopes  gone;  that  soon  Payne  came  into  the  same  room,  also  armed  and  under  great 
excitement,  and  was  immediately  followed  by  Booth,  with  his  riding-whip  in  his  hand, 
who  walked  rapidly  across  the  floor  from  side  to  side,  so  much  excited  that  for  some 
time  he  did  not  notice  the  presence  of  the  witness.  Observing  Wiechmann,  the  parties 
then  withdrew,  upon  a  suggestion  from  Booth,  to  an  upper  room,  and  there  had  a  pri 
vate  interview.  From  all  that  transpired  on  that  occasion,  it  is  apparent  that  when 
these  parties  left  the  house  that  day  it  was  with  the  full  purpose  of  completing  some 
act  essential  to  the  final  execution  of  the  work  of  assassination,  in  conformity  with  their 
previous  confederation  and  agreement.  They  returned  foiled  —  from  what  cause  is 
unknown  —dejected,  angry,  and  covered  with  confusion. 

It  is  almost  imposing  upon  the  patience  of  the  court  to  consume  time  in  demonstrat 
ing  the  fact  which  none  conversant  with  the  testimony  of  this  case  can  for  a  moment 
•doubt,  that  John  H.  Surratt  and  Mary  E.  Surratt  were  as  surely  in  the  conspiracy  to 
murder  the  President  as  was  John  Wilkes  Booth  himself.  You  have  the  frequent  inter 
views  between  John  H.  Surratt  and  Booth,  his  intimate  relations  with  Payne,  his  visits 
from  Atzerodt  and  Herold,  his  deposit  of  the  arms  to  cover  their  flight  after  the  con 
spiracy  should  have  been  executed;  his  own  declared  visit  to  Richmond  to  do  what 
Booth  himself  said  to  Chester  must  be  done,  to  wit,  that  he  or  some  of  the  party  must 
•go  to  Richmond  in  order  to  get  funds  to  carry  out  the  conspiracy;  that  he  brought  back 
with  him  gold,  the  price  of  blood,  confessing  himself  that  he  was  there;  that  he  imme 
diately  went  to  Canada,  delivered  despatches  in  cipher  to  Jacob  Thompson  from  Jeff 
erson  Davis,  which  were  interpreted  and  read  by  Thompson  in  the  presence  of  the  witness 
Conover,  and  in  which  the  conspiracy  was  approved,  and,  in  the  language  of  Thompson, 
the  proposed  assassination  was  "  made  all  right." 


390 


APPENDIX. 


One  other  fact,  if  any  other  fact  be  needed,  and  I  have  done  with  the  evidence 
which  proves  that  John  H.  Surratt  entered  into  this  combination;  that  is,  that  it 
appears  by  the  testimony  of  the  witness,  the  cashier  of  the  Ontario  Bank,  Montreal, 
that  Jacob  Thompson,  about  the  day  that  these  despatches  were  delivered,  and  while 
Surratt  was  then  present  in  Canada,  drew  from  that  bank  of  the  rebel  funds  there  on 
deposit  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars.  This  being  done, 
Surratt,  finding  it  safer,  doubtless,  to  go  to  Canada  for  the  great  bulk  of  funds  which 
were  to  be  distributed  amongst  these  hired  assassins  than  to  attempt  to  carry  it  through 
our  lines  direct  from  Richmond,  immediately  returned  to  Washington  and  was  present 
in  this  city,  as  is  proven  by  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Reid,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  i^th  of 
April,  the  day  of  the  assassination,  booted  and  spurred,  ready  for  the  flight  whenever 
the  fatal  blow  should  have  been  struck.  If  he  was  not  a  conspirator  and  a  party  to 
this  great  crime,  how  comes  it  that  from  that  hour  to  this  no  man  has  seen  him  in  the 
capital,  nor  has  he  been  reported  anywhere  outside  of  Canada,  having  arrived  at  Mont 
real,  as  the  testimony  shows,  on  the  i8th  of  April,  four  days  after  the  murder?  Noth 
ing  but  his  conscious  coward  guilt  could  possibly  induce  him  to  absent  himself  from 
his  mother,  as  he  does,  upon  her  trial.  Being  one  of  these  conspirators,  as  charged, 
every  act  of  his  in  the  prosecution  of  this  crime  is  evidence  against  the  other  parties  to 
the  conspiracy. 

That  Mary  E.  Surratt  is  as  guilty  as  her  son  of  having  thus  conspired,  combined,  and 
confederated  to  do  this  murder,  in  aid  of  this  rebellion,  is  clear.  First,  her  house  was 
the  headquarters  of  Booth,  John  H.  Surratt,  Atzerodt,  Payne,  and  Herold.  She  is. 
inquired  for  by  Atzerodt;  she  is  inquired  for  by  Payne;  and  she  is  visited  by  Booth, 
and  holds  private  conversations  with  him.  His  picture,  together  with  that  of  the  chief 
conspirator,  Jefferson  Davis,  is  found  in  her  house.  She  sends  to  Booth  for  a  carriage 
to  take  her,  on  the  nth  of  April,  to  Surrattsville  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  the 
arrangement  deemed  necessary  to  the  successful  execution  of  the  conspiracy,  and 
especially  to  facilitate  and  protect  the  conspirators  in  their  escape  from  justice.  On 
that  occasion  Booth,  having  disposed  of  his  carriage,  gives  to  the  agent  she  employed 
ten  dollars  with  which  to  hire  a  conveyance  for  that  purpose.  And  yet  the  pretence 
is  made  that  Mrs.  Surratt  went  on  the  nth  to  Surrattsville  exclusively  upon  her  own 
private  and  lawful  business.  Can  any  one  tell,  if  that  be  so,  how  it  comes  that  she 
should  apply  to  Booth  for  a  conveyance,  and  how  it  comes  that  he  of  his  own  accord, 
having  no  conveyance  to  furnish  her,  should  send  her  ten  dollars  with  which  to  procure 
it?  There  is  not  the  slightest  indication  that  Booth  was  under  any  obligation  to  her, 
or  that  she  had  any  claim  upon  him,  either  for  a  conveyance  or  for  the  means  with 
which  to  procure  one,  except  that  he  was  bound  to  contribute,  being  the  agent  of  the 
conspirators  in  Canada  and  Richmond,  whatever  money  might  be  necessary  to  the  con 
summation  of  this  infernal  plot.  On  that  day,  the  nth  of  April,  John  H.  Surratt  had 
not  returned  from  Canada  with  the  funds  furnished  by  Thompson  ! 

Upon  that  journey  of  the  nth  the  accused,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  met  the  witness. 
John  M.  Lloyd  at  Uniontown.  She  called  him;  he  got  out  of  his  carriage  and  came 
to  her,  and  she  whispered  to  him  in  so  low  a  tone  that  her  attendant  could  not  hear 
her  words,  though  Lloyd,  to  whom  they  were  spoken,  did  distinctly  hear  them,  and 
testifies  that  she  told  him  he  should  have  those  "shooting-irons"  ready,  meaning  the 
carbines  which  her  son  and  Herold  and  Atzerodt  had  deposited  with  him,  and 
added  the  reason,  "  for  they  would  soon  be  called  for."  On  the  day  of  the  assassina 
tion  she  again  sent  for  Booth,  had  an  interview  with  him  in  her  own  house,  and 


APPENDIX.  391 

immediately  went  again  to  Surrattsville,  and  then,  at  about  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
she  delivered  to  Lloyd  a  field-glass,  and  told  him  "  to  have  two  bottles  of  whiskey  and  the 
carbines  ready,  as  they  would  be  called  for  that  night."  Having  thus  perfected  the 
arrangement  she  returned  to  Washington  to  her  own  house,  at  about  half -past  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  to  await  the  final  result.  How  could  this  woman  anticipate  on 
Friday  afternoon,  at  six  o'clock,  that  these  arms  would  be  called  for  and  would  be 
needed  that  night  unless  she  was  in  the  conspiracy  and  knew  the  blow  was  to  be  struck, 
and  the  flight  of  the  assassins  attempted  and  by  that  route?  Was  not  the  private  con 
versation  which  Booth  held  with  her  in  her  parlor  on  the  afternoon  of  the  I4th  of 
April,  just  before  she  left  on  this  business,  in  relation  to  the  orders  she  should  give  to 
have  the  arms  ready? 

An  endeavor  is  made  to  impeach  Lloyd.  But  the  court  will  observe  that  no  witness 
has  been  called  who  contradicts  Lloyd's  statement  in  any  material  matter;  neither  has 
his  general  character  for  truth  been  assailed.  How,  then,  is  he  impeached?  Is  it 
claimed  that  his  testimony  shows  that  he  was  a  party  to  the  conspiracy?  Then  it  is 
conceded  by  those  who  set  up  any  such  pretence  that  there  was  a  conspiracy.  A  con 
spiracy  between  whom?  There  can  be  no  conspiracy  without  the  co-operation  or 
agreement  of  two  or  more  persons.  Who  were  the  other  parties  to  it?  Was  it 
Mary  E.  Surratt?  Was  it  John  H.  Surratt,  George  A.  Atzeroclt,  David  E.  Herold? 
Those  are  the  only  persons,  so  far  as  his  own  testimony  or  the  testimony  of  any  other 
witness  discloses,  with  whom  he  had  any  communication  whatever  on  any  subject 
immediately  or  remotely  touching  this  conspiracy  before  the  assassination.  His  receipt 
and  concealment  of  the  arms  are,  unexplained,  evidence  that  he  was  in  the  conspiracy. 

The  explanation  is  that  he  was  dependent  upon  Mary  E.  Surratt;  was  her  tenant; 
and  his  declaration,  given  in  evidence  by  the  accused  herself,  is  that  "  she  had  ruined 
him  and  brought  this  trouble  upon  him."  But  because  he  was  weak  enough,  or  wicked 
enough,  to  become  the  guilty  depository  of  these  arms,  and  to  deliver  them  on  the 
order  of  Mary  E.  Surratt  to  the  assassins,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is  not  to  be  believed 
on  oath.  It  is  said  that  he  concealed  the  facts  that  the  arms  had  been  left  and  called 
for.  He  so  testifies  himself,  but  he  gives  the  reason  that  he  did  it  only  from  apprehen 
sion  of  danger  to  his  life.  If  he  were  in  the  conspiracy,  his  general  credit  being 
unchallenged,  his  testimony  being  uncontradicted  in  any  material  matter,  he  is  to  be 
believed,  and  cannot  be  disbelieved  if  his  testimony  is  substantially  corroborated  by 
other  reliable  witnesses.  Is  he  not  corroborated  touching  the  deposit  of  arms  by  the 
fact  that  the  arms  are  produced  in  court,  one  of  which  was  found  upon  the  person  of 
Booth  at  the  time  he  was  overtaken  and  slain,  and  which  is  identified  as  the  same  which 
had  been  left  with  Lloyd  by  Herold,  Surratt,  and  Atzerodt?  Is  he  not  corroborated  in 
the  fact  of  the  first  interview  with  Mrs.  Surratt  by  the  joint  testimony  of  Mrs.  Offut 
and  Lewis  J.  Wiechmann,  each  of  whom  testified  (and  they  are  contradicted  by  no 
one),  that  on  Tuesday,  the  nth  day  of  April,  at  Uniontown,  Mrs.  Surratt  called  Mr. 
Lloyd  to  come  to  her,  which  he  did,  and  she  held  a  secret  conversation  with  him?  Is 
he  not  corroborated  as  to  the  last  conversation  on  the  I4th  of  April  by  the  testimony  of 
Mrs.  Offut,  who  swears  that  upon  the  evening  of  the  I4th  of  April  she  saw  the  pris 
oner,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  at  Lloyd's  house,  approach  and  hold  conversation  with  him? 
Is  he  not  corroborated  in  the  fact,  to  which  he  swears,  that  Mrs.  Surratt  delivered  to 
him  at  that  time  the  field-glass  wrapped  in  paper,  by  the  sworn  statement  of  Wiechmann 
that  Mrs.  Surratt  took  with  her  on  that  occasion  two  packages,  both  of  which  were 
wrapped  in  paper,  and  one  of  which  he  describes  as  a  small  package  about  six  inches 


392  APPENDIX. 

in  diameter?  The  attempt  was  made  by  calling  Mrs.  Offut  to  prove  that  no  such  pack 
age  was  delivered,  but  it  failed;  she  merely  states  that  Mrs.  Surratt  delivered  a  package 
wrapped  in  paper  to  her  after  her  arrival  there,  and  before  Lloyd  came  in,  which  was 
laid  down  in  the  room.  But  whether  it  was  the  package  about  which  Lloyd  testifies,  or 
the  other  package  of  the  two  about  which  Wiechmann  testifies,  as  having  been  carried 
there  that  day  by  Mrs.  Surratt,  does  not  appear.  Neither  does  this  witness  pretend  to 
say  that  Mrs.  Surratt,  after  she  had  delivered  it  to  her,  and  the  witness  had  laid  it  down 
in  the  room,  did  not  again  take  it  up,  if  it  were  the  same,  and  put  it  in  the  hands  of 
Lloyd.  She  only  knows  that  she  did  not  see  that  done;  but  she  did  see  Lloyd  with  a 
package  like  the  one  she  received  in  the  room  before  Mrs.  Surratt  left.  How  it  came 
into  his  possession  she  is  not  able  to  state;  nor  what  the  package  was  that  Mrs.  Surratt 
first  handed  her;  nor  which  of  the  packages  it  was  she  afterwards  saw  in  the  hands  of 
Lloyd. 

But  there  is  one  other  fact  in  this  case  that  puts  forever  at  rest  the  question  of  the 
guilty  participation  of  the  prisoner,  Mrs.  Surratt,  in  this  conspiracy  and  murder;  and 
that  is  that  Payne,  who  had  lodged  four  days  in  hei.  house  —  who  during  all  that  time 
had  sat  at  her  table,  and  who  had  often  conversed  with  her  —  when  the  guilt  of  his 
great  crime  was  upon  him,  and  he  knew  not  where  else  he  could  so  safely  go  to  find  a 
co-conspirator,  and  he  could  trust  none  that  was  not  like  himself,  guilty,  with  even  the 
knowledge  of  his  presence  —  under  cover  of  darkness,  after  wandering  for  three  days 
and  nights,  skulking  before  the  pursuing  officers  of  justice,  at  the  hour  of  midnight 
found  his  way  to  the  door  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  rang  the  bell,  was  admitted,  and  upon  being 
asked,  "Whom  do  you  want  to  see?"  replied,  "  Mrs.  Surratt."  He  was  then  asked 
by  the  officer,  Morgan,  what  he  came  at  that  time  of  night  for,  to  which  he  replied, 
"  to  dig  a  gutter  in  the  morning;  Mrs.  Surratt  had  sent  for  him."  Afterwards  he  said 
"  Mrs.  Surratt  knew  he  was  a  poor  man  and  came  to  ////;/."  Being  asked  where  he  last 
worked,  he  replied,  "sometimes  on  '  I  '  street";  and  where  he  boarded,  he  replied, 
"he  had  no  boarding-house,  and  was  a  poor  man  who  got  his  living  with  the  pick," 
which  he  bore  upon  his  shoulder,  having  stolen  it  from  the  intrenchments  of  the  capital. 
Upon  being  pressed  again  why  he  came  there  at  that  time  of  night  to  go  to  work,  he 
answered  that  he  simply  called  to  see  what  time  he  should  go  to  work  in  the  morning. 
Upon  being  told  by  the  officer,  who  fortunately  had  preceded  him  to  this  house,  that 
he  would  have  to  go  to  the  provost  marshal's  office,  he  moved  and  did  not  answer, 
whereupon  Mrs.  Surratt  was  asked  to  step  into  the  hall  and  state  whether  she  knew 
this  man.  Raising  her  right  hand,  she  exclaimed,  "  Before  God,  sir,  I  have  not  seen 
that  man  before;  I  have  not  hired  him;  I  do  not  know  anything  about  him."  The 
hall  was  brilliantly  lighted. 

If  not  one  word  had  been  said,  the  mere  act  of  Payne  in  flying  to  her  house  for 
shelter  would  have  borne  witness  against  her,  strong  as  proofs  from  Holy  Writ.  But 
when  she  denies,  after  hearing  his  declarations,  that  she  had  sent  for  him,  or  that  she 
had  gone  to  him  and  hired  him,  and  calls  her  God  to  witness  that  she  had  never  seen 
him,  and  knew  nothing  of  him,  when,  in  point  of  fact,  she  had  seen  him  for  four  suc 
cessive  days  in  her  own  house,  in  the  same  clothing  which  he  then  wore,  who  can 
resist  for  a  moment  the  conclusion  that  these  parties  were  alike  guilty? 

The  testimony  of  Spangler's  complicity  is  conclusive  and  brief.  It  was  impossible 
to  hope  for  escape  after  assassinating  the  President,  and  such  others  as  might  attend 
him  in  Ford's  Theatre,  without  arrangements  being  first  made  to  aid  the  flight  of  the 
assassin  and  to  some  extent  prevent  immediate  pursuit. 


APPENDIX.  393 

A  stable  was  to  be  provided  close  to  Ford's  Theatre,  in  which  the  horses  could  be 
concealed  and  kept  ready  for  the  assassin's  use  whenever  the  murderous  blow  was 
struck.  Accordingly,  Booth  secretly,  through  Maddox,  hired  a  stable  in  rear  of  the 
theatre  and  connecting  with  it  by  an  alley,  as  early  as  the  1st  of  January  last;  showing 
that  at  that  time  he  had  concluded,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  to  the  con 
trary,  to  murder  the  President  in  Ford's  Theatre  and  provide  the  means  for  immediate 
and  successful  flight.  Conscious  of  his  guilt,  he  paid  the  rent  for  this  stable  through 
Maddox,  month  by  month,  giving  him  the  money.  He  employed  Spangler,  doubtless 
for  the  reason  that  he  could  trust  him  with  the  secret,  as  a  carpenter  to  fit  up  this  shed, 
so  that  it  would  furnish  room  for  two  horses,  and  provide  the  door  with  lock  and  key. 
Spangler  did  this  work  for  him.  Then,  it  was  necessary  that  a  carpenter  having  access 
to  the  theatre  should  be  employed  by  the  assassin  to  provide  a  bar  for  the  outer  door  of 
the  passage  leading  to  the  President's  box,  so  that  when  he  entered  upon  his  work  of 
assassination  he  would  be  secure  from  interruption  from  the  rear.  By  the  evidence,  it 
is  shown  that  Spangler  was  in  the  box  in  which  the  President  was  murdered  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  1 4th  of  April,  and  when  there  damned  the  President  and  General 
Grant,  and  said  the  President  ought  to  be  cursed,  he  had  got  so  many  good  men  killed; 
showing  not  only  his  hostility  to  the  President,  but  the  cause  of  it  — that  he  had  been 
faithful  to  his  oath  and  had  resisted  that  great  rebellion  in  the  interest  of  which  his  life 
was  about  to  be  sacrificed  by  this  man  and  his  co-conspirators.  In  performing  the 
work  which  had  doubtless  been  intrusted  to  him  by  Booth,  a  mortise  was  cut  in  the 
wall.  A  wooden  bar  was  prepared,  one  end  of  which  could  be  readily  inserted  in 
the  mortise  and  the  other  pressed  against  the  edge  of  the  door  on  the  inside  so  as  to 
prevent  its  being  opened.  Spangler  had  the  skill  and  the  opportunity  to  do  that  work 
and  all  the  additional  work  which  was  done. 

It  is  in  evidence  that  the  screws  in  "  the  keepers  "  to  the  locks  on  each  of  the  inner 
doors  of  the  box  occupied  by  the  President  were  drawn.  The  attempt  has  been  made, 
on  behalf  of  the  prisoner,  to  show  that  this  was  done  some  time  before,  accidentally, 
•and  with  no  bad  design,  and  had  not  been  repaired  by  reason  of  inadvertence;  but 
that  attempt  has  utterly  failed,  because  the  testimony  adduced  for  that  purpose  relates 
•exclusively  to  but  one  of  the  two  inner  doors,  while  the  fact  is,  that  the  screws  were 
drawn  in  both,  and  the  additional  precaution  taken  to  cut  a  small  hole  through  one  of 
these  doors  through  which  the  party  approaching  and  while  in  the  private  passage 
would  be  enabled  to  look  into  the  box  and  examine  the  exact  posture  of  the  President 
before  entering.  It  was  also  deemed  essential,  in  the  execution  of  this  plot,  that  some 
-one  should  watch  at  the  outer  door,  in  the  rear  of  the  theatre,  by  which  alone  the 
assassin  could  hope  for  escape.  It  was  for  this  work  Booth  sought  to  employ  Chester 
in  January,  offering  three  thousand  dollars  down  of  the  money  of  his  employers,  and 
the  assurance  that  he  should  never  want.  What  Chester  refused  to  do  Spangler  under 
took  and  promised  to  do.  When  Booth  brought  his  horse  to  the  rear  door  of  the 
theatre,  on  the  evening  of  the  murder,  he  called  for  Spangler,  who  went  to  him,  when 
Booth  was  heard  to  say  to  him,  "Ned,  you'll  help  me  all  you  can,  won't  you?"  To 
which  Spangler  replied,  "Oh,  yes." 

When  Booth  made  his  escape,  it  is  testified  by  Colonel  Stewart,  who  pursued  him 
across  the  stage  and  out  through  the  same  door,  that  as  he  approached  it  some  one 
slammed  it  shut.  Ritterspaugh,  who  was  standing  behind  the  scenes  when  Booth  fired 
the  pistol  and  fled,  saw  Booth  run  down  the  passage  toward  the  back  door,  and  pur 
sued  him;  but  Booth  drew  his  knife  upon  him  and  passed  out,  slamming  the  door  after 


394  APPENDIX. 

him.  Ritterspaugh  opened  it  and  went  through,  leaving  it  open  behind  him,  leaving 
Spangler  inside,  and  in  a  position  from  which  he  readily  could  have  reached  the  door. 
Ritterspaugh  also  states  that  very  quickly  after  he  had  passed  through  this  door  he  was- 
followed  by  a  large  man,  the  first  who  followed  him,  and  who  was,  doubtless,  Colonel 
Stewart.  Stewart  is  very  positive  that  he  saw  this  door  slammed;  that  he  himself  was 
constrained  to  open  it,  and  had  some  difficulty  in  opening  it.  He  also  testifies  that  as- 
he  approached  the  door  a  man  stood  near  enough  to  have  thrown  it  to  with  his  hand, 
and  this  man,  the  witness  believes,  was  the  prisoner  Spangler.  Ritterspaugh  has 
sworn  that  he  left  the  door  open  behind  him  when  he  went  out,  and  that  he  was  first 
followed  by  the  large  man,  Colonel  Stewart.  Who  slammed  that  door  behind  Ritters 
paugh?  It  was  not  Ritterspaugh;  it  could  not  have  been  Booth,  for  Ritterspaugh 
swears  that  Booth  was  mounting  his  horse  at  the  time;  and  Stewart  swears  that  Booth 
was  upon  his  horse  when  he  came  out.  That  it  was  Spangler  who  slammed  the  door 
after  Ritterspaugh  may  not  only  be  inferred  from  Stewart's  testimony,  but  it  is  made 
very  clear  by  his  own  conduct  afterwards  upon  the  return  of  Ritterspaugh  to  the  stage. 
The  door  being  then  open,  and  Ritterspaugh  being  asked  which  way  Booth  went,  had 
answered.  Ritterspaugh  says:  "Then  I  came  back  on  the  stage,  where  I  had  left 
Edward  Spangler;  he  hit  me  on  the  face  with  his  hand  and  said,  'Don't  say  which 
way  he  went.'  I  asked  him  what  he  meant  by  slapping  me  in  the  mouth?  He  said,. 
*  For  God's  sake,  shut  up.'  " 

The  testimony  of  Withers  is  adroitly  handled  to  throw  doubt  upon  these  facts.  It 
cannot  avail,  for  Withers  says  he  was  knocked  in  the  scene  by  Booth,  and  when  he 
"come  to"  he  got  a  side  view  of  him.  A  man  knocked  down  and  senseless,  on 
"  coming  to  "  might  mistake  anybody  by  a  side  view  for  Booth. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  by  the  defense  to  discredit  this  testimony  of  Ritters 
paugh,  by  showing  his  contradictory  statements  to  Gifford,  Garlan,  and  Lamb,  neither 
of  whom  do  in  fact  contradict  him,  but  substantially  sustain  him.  None  but  a  guilty 
man  would  have  met  the  witness  with  a  blow  for  stating  which  way  the  assassin  had 
gone.  A  like  confession  of  guilt  was  made  by  Spangler  when  the  witness  Miles,  the 
same  evening,  and  directly  after  the  assassination,  came  to  the  back  door,  where 
Spangler  was  standing  with  others,  and  asked  Spangler  who  it  was  that  held  the  horse, 
to  which  Spangler  replied :  "Hush;  don't  say  anything  about  it."  He  confessed  his 
guilt  again  when  he  denied  to  Mary  Anderson  the  fact,  proved  here  beyond  all 
question,  that  Booth  had  called  him  when  he  came  to  that  door  with  his  horse,  using 
the  emphatic  words,  "  No,  he  did  not;  he  did  not  call  me."  The  rope  comes  to  bear 
witness  against  him,  as  did  the  rope  which  Atzerodt  and  Herold  and  John  H.  Surratt 
had  carried  to  Surrattsville  and  deposed  there  with  the  carbines. 

It  is  only  surprising  that  the  ingenious  counsel  did  not  attempt  to  explain  the 
deposit  of  the  rope  at  Surrattsville  by  the  same  method  that  he  adopted  in  explanation 
of  the  deposit  of  this  rope,  some  sixty  feet  long,  found  in  the  carpet-sack  of  Spangler, 
unaccounted  for  save  by  some  evidence  which  tends  to  show  that  he  may  have  carried 
it  away  from  the  theatre. 

It  is  not  needful  to  take  time  in  the  recapitulation  of  the  evidence,  which  shows 
conclusively  that  David  E.  Herold  was  one  of  these  conspirators.  His  continued  asso 
ciation  with  Booth,  with  Atzerodt,  his  visits  to  Mrs.  Surratt's,  his  attendance  at  the 
theatre  with  Payne,  Surratt,  and  Atzerodt,  his  connection  with  Atzerodt  on  the  evening 
of  the  murder,  riding  with  him  on  the  street  in  the  direction  of  and  near  to  the  theatre 
at  the  hour  appointed  for  the  work  of  assassination,  and  his  final  flight  and  arrest,, 


APPENDIX.  395 

show  that  he,  in  common  with  all  the  other  parties  on  trial,  and  all  the  parties  named 
upon  your  record  not  upon  trial,  and  combined  and  confederated  to  kill  and  murder  in 
the  interests  of  the  rebellion,  as  charged  and  specified  against  them. 

That  this  conspiracy  was  entered  into  by  all  these  parties,  both  present  and  absent, 
is  thus  proved  by  the  acts,  meetings,  declarations,  and  correspondence  of  all  the 
parties,  beyond  any  doubt  whatever.  True  it  is  circumstantial  evidence,  but  the  court 
will  remember  the  rule  before  recited,  that  circumstances  cannot  lie;  that  they  are 
held  sufficient  in  every  court  where  justice  is  judicially  administered  to  establish  the 
fact  of  a  conspiracy.  I  shall  take  no  further  notice  of  the  remark  made  by  the  learned 
counsel  who  opens  for  the  defense,  and  which  has  been  followed  by  several  of  his 
associates,  that  under  the  Constitution  it  requires  two  witnesses  to  prove  the  overt  act 
of  high  treason,  than  to  say,  this  is  not  a  charge  of  high  treason,  but  of  a  treasonable 
conspiracy,  in  aid  of  a  rebellion,  with  intent  to  kill  and  murder  the  executive  officer  of 
the  United  States,  and  commander  of  its  armies,  and  of  the  murder  of  the  President  in 
pursuance  of  that  conspiracy,  and  with  the  intent  laid,  etc.  Neither  by  the  Constitu 
tion,  nor  by  the  rules  of  the  common  law,  is  any  fact  connected  with  this  allegation 
required  to  be  established  by  the  testimony  of  more  than  one  witness.  I  might  say, 
however,  that  every  substantive  averment  against  each  of  the  parties  named  upon  this 
record  has  been  established  by  the  testimony  of  more  than  one  witness. 

That  the  several  accused  did  enter  into  this  conspiracy  with  John  Wilkes  Booth  and 
John  H.  Surratt  to  murder  the  officers  of  this  government  named  upon  the  record,  in 
pursuance  of  the  wishes  of  their  employers  and  instigators  in  Richmond  and  Canada, 
and  with  intent  thereby  to  aid  the  existing  rebellion  and  subvert  the  Constitution  and 
laws  of  the  United  States,  as  alleged,  is  no  longer  an  open  question. 

The  intent  as  laid  was  expressly  declared  by  Sanders  in  the  meeting  of  the  conspir 
ators  at  Montreal  in  February  last,  by  Booth  in  Virginia  and  New  York,  and  by  Thomp 
son  to  Conover  and  Montgomery;  but  if  there  were  no  testimony  directly  upon  this 
point,  the  law  would  presume  the  intent,  for  the  reason  that  such  was  the  natural  and 
necessary  tendency  and  manifest  design  of  the  act  itself. 

The  learned  gentleman  (Mr.  Johnson)  says  the  government  has  survived  the  assas 
sination  of  the  President,  and  thereby  would  have  you  infer  that  this  conspiracy  was. 
not  entered  into  and  attempted  to  be  executed  with  the  intent  laid.  With  as  much 
show  of  reason  it  might  be  said  that  because  the  government  of  the  United  States  has 
survived  this  unmatched  rebellion,  it  therefore  results  that  the  rebel  conspirators 
waged  war  upon  the  government  with  no  purpose  or  intent  thereby  to  subvert  it.  By 
the  law  we  have  seen  that,  without  any  direct  evidence  of  previous  combination  and 
agreement  between  these  parties,  the  conspiracy  might  be  established  by  evidence  of  the 
acts  of  the  prisoners,  or  of  any  others  with  whom  they  co-operated,  concurring  in  the 
execution  of  the  common  design.  —  I\oscoe,  416. 

Was  there  co-operation  between  the  several  accused  in  the  execution  of  this  con 
spiracy?  That  there  was  is  as  clearly  established  by  the  testimony  as  is  the  fact  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  killed  and  murdered  by  John  Wilkes  Booth.  The  evidence  shows, 
that  all  of  the  accused,  save  Mudd  and  Arnold,  were  in  Washington  on  the  I4th  of 
April,  the  day  of  the  assassination,  together  with  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H. 
Surratt;  that  on  that  day  Booth  had  a  secret  interview  with  the  prisoner,  Mary  E_ 
Snrratt;  that  immediately  thereafter  she  went  to  Surrattsville  to  perform  her  part  of  the 
preparation  necessary  to  the  successful  execution  of  the  conspiracy,  and  did  make  that 
preparation;  that  John  H.  Surratt  had  arrived  here  from  Canada,  notifying  the  parties. 


396  APPENDIX. 

that  the  price  to  be  paid  for  this  great  crime  had  been  provided  for,  at  least  in  part,  by 
the  deposit  receipts  of  April  6th  for  $180,000,  procured  by  Thompson  of  the  Ontario 
Bank,  Montreal,  Canada;  that  he  was  also  prepared  to  keep  watch,  or  strike  a  blow, 
and  ready  for  the  contemplated  flight;  that  Atzerodt,  on  the  afternoon  of  that  day, 
was  seeking  Lo  obtain  a  horse,  the  better  to  secure  his  own  safety  by  flight,  after  he 
should  have  performed  the  task  which  he  had  voluntarily  undertaken  by  contract  in  the 
conspiracy  —  the  murder  of  Andrew  Johnson,  then  Vice-President  of  the  United  States; 
that  he  did  procure  a  horse  for  that  purpose  at  Naylor's,  and  was  seen  about  nine  o'clock 
in  the  evening  to  ride  to  the  Kirkwood  House,  where  the  Vice-President  then  was,  dis 
mount  and  enter.  At  a  previous  hour  Booth  was  in  the  Kirkwood  House,  and  left  his 
card,  now  in  evidence,  doubtless  intended  to  be  sent  to  the  room  of  the  Vice-President, 
and  which  was  in  these  words:  "Don't  wish  to  disturb  you.  Are  you  at  home?  J. 
Wilkes  Booth."  Atzerodt,  when  he  made  application  at  Brooks's  in  the  afternoon  for 
the  horse,  said  to  Wiechmann,  who  was  there,  he  was  going  to  ride  in  the  country,  and 
that  "  he  was  going  to  get  a  horse  and  send  for  Payne."  He  did  get  a  horse  for  Payne, 
as  well  as  for  himself;  for  it  is  proven  that  on  the  I2th  he  was  seen  in  Washington 
riding  the  horse  which  had  been  procured  by  Booth,  in  company  with  Mudd,  last 
November,  from  Gardner.  A  similar  horse  was  tied  before  the  door  of  Mr.  Seward  on 
the  night  of  the  murder,  was  captured  after  the  flight  of  Payne,  who  was  seen  to  ride 
away,  and  which  horse  is  now  identified  as  the  Gardner  horse.  Booth  also  procured  a 
horse  on  the  same  day,  took  it  to  his  stable  in  the  rear  of  the  theatre,  where  he  had  an 
interview  with  Spangler,  and  where  he  concealed  it.  Herold,  too,  obtained  a  horse  in 
the  afternoon,  and  was  seen  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock  riding  with  Atzerodt  down 
the  Avenue  from  the  Treasury,  then  up  Fourteenth  and  down  F  Street,  passing  close 
by  Ford's  Theatre. 

O'Laughlin  had  come  to  Washington  the  day  before,  had  sought  out  his  victim 
(General  Grant)  at  the  house  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  that  he  might  be  able  with 
certainty  to  identify  him,  and  at  the  very  hour  when  these  preparations  were  going  on 
was  lying  in  wait  at  Rullman's  on  the  Avenue,  keeping  watch,  and  declaring,  as  he 
did,  at  about  ten  o'clock  P.M.,  when  told  that  the  fatal  blow  had  been  struck  by  Booth, 
"  I  don't  believe  Booth  did  it."  During  the  day,  and  the  night  before,  he  had  been 
visiting  Booth,  and  doubtless  encouraging  him,  and  at  that  very  hour  was  in  position, 
at  a  convenient  distance,  to  aid  and  protect  him  in  his  flight,  as  well  as  to  execute  his 
own  part  of  the  conspiracy  by  inflicting  death  upon  General  Grant,  who,  happily,  was 
not  at  the  theatre  nor  in  the  city,  having  left  the  city  that  day.  Who  doubts  that 
Booth,  having  ascertained  in  the  course  of  the  day  that  General  Grant  would  not  be 
present  at  the  theatre,  O'Laughlin,  who  was  to  murder  General  Grant,  instead  of  enter 
ing  the  box  with  Booth,  was  detailed  to  lie  in  wait,  and  watch  and  support  him. 

His  declarations  of  his  reasons  for  changing  his  lodgings  here  and  in  Baltimore, 
after  the  murder,  so  ably  and  so  ingeniously  presented  in  the  argument  of  his  learned 
counsel  (Mr.  Cox),  avail  nothing  before  the  blasting  fact  that  he  did  change  his  lodg 
ings,  and  declared  "he  knew  nothing  of  the  affair  whatever."  O'Laughlin,  who 
lurked  here,  conspiring  daily  with  Booth  and  Arnold  for  six  weeks  to  do  this  murder, 
declares  "he  knew  nothing  of  the  affair."  O'Laughlin,  who  said  he  was  "in  the  oil 
business,"  which  Booth  and  Surratt  and  Payne  and  Arnold  have  all  declared  meant  this 
conspiracy,  says  he  "knew  nothing  of  the  affair."  O'Laughlin,  to  whom  Booth  sent 
the  despatches  of  the  I3th  and  27th  of  March  —  O'Laughlin,  who  is  named  in  Arnold's 
letter  as  one  of  the  conspirators,  and  who  searched  for  General  Grant  on  Thursday 


APPENDIX.  397 

night,  laid  in  wait  for  him  on  Friday,  was  defeated  by  that  Providence  "  which  shapes 
our  ends,"  and  laid  in  wait  to  aid  Booth  and  Payne,  declares  "he  knows  nothing  of 
the  matter."  Such  a  denial  is  as  false  and  inexcusable  as  Peter's  denial  of  our  Lord. 

Mrs.  Surratt  had  arrived  at  home,  from  the  completion  of  her  part  in  the  plot,  about 
half  past  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening.  A  few  moments  afterwards  she  was  called  to 
the  parlor  and  there  had  a  private  interview  with  some  one  unseen,  but  whose  retreating 
footsteps  were  heard  by  the  witness  Wiechmann.  This  was  doubtless  the  secret  and 
last  visit  of  John  H.  Surratt  to  his  mother,  who  had  instigated  and  encouraged  him  to 
strike  this  traitorous  and  murderous  blow  against  his  country. 

While  all  these  preparations  were  going  on,  Mudd  was  awaiting  the  execution  of  the 
plot,  ready  to  faithfully  perform  his  part  in  securing  the  safe  escape  of  the  murderers. 
Arnold  was  at  his  post  at  Fortress  Monroe,  awaiting  the  meeting  referred  to  in  his  letter 
of  March  27th,  wherein  he  says  they  were  not  "to  meet  for  a  month  or  so,"  which 
month  had  more  than  expired  on  the  day  of  the  murder,  for  his  letter  and  the  testimony 
disclose  that  this  month  of  suspension  began  to  run  from  about  the  first  week  in  March. 
He  stood  ready  with  the  arms  which  Booth  had  furnished  him  to  aid  the  escape  of  the 
murderers  by  that  route,  and  secure  their  communication  with  their  employers.  He 
had  given  the  assurance  in  that  letter  to  Booth,  that  although  the  government  "  suspi- 
cioned  them,"  and  the  undertaking  was  "  becoming  complicated,"  yet  "a  time  more 
propitious  would  arrive"  for  the  consummation  of  this  conspiracy  in  which  he  "was 
one  "  with  Booth,  and  when  he  would  "  be  better  prepared  to  again  be  with  him." 

Such  were  the  preparations.  The  horses  were  in  readiness  for  the  flight;  the 
ropes  were  procured,  doubtless  for  the  purpose  of  tying  the  horses  at  whatever  point  they 
might  be  constrained  to  delay  and  to  secure  their  boats  to  their  moorings  in  making 
their  way  across  the  Potomac.  The  five  murderous  camp  knives,  the  two  carbines,  the 
eight  revolvers,  the  derringer,  in  court  and  identified,  all  were  ready  for  the  work  of 
death.  The  part  that  each  had  played  has  already  been  in  part  stated  in  this  argument, 
and  needs  no  repetition. 

Booth  proceeded  to  the  theatre  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  at  the  same  time 
that  Atzerodt  and  Payne  and  Herold  were  riding  the  streets,  while  Surratt,  having 
parted  with  his  mother  at  the  brief  interview  in  her  parlor,  from  which  his  retreating 
steps  were  heard,  was  walking  the  Avenue,  booted  and  spurred,  and  doubtless  con 
sulting  with  O'Laughlin.  When  Booth  reached  the  rear  of  the  theatre,  he  called  Spang- 
ler  to  him  (whose  denial  of  that  fact,  when  charged  with  it,  as  proven  by  three  witnesses 
is  very  significant)  and  received  from  Spangler  his  pledge  to  help  him  all  he  could, 
when  with  Booth  he  entered  the  theatre  by  the  stage-door,  doubtless  to  see  that  the 
way  was  clear  from  the  box  to  the  rear  door  of  the  theatre,  and  look  upon  their  victim, 
whose  exact  position  they  could  study  from  the  stage.  After  this  view,  Booth  passes  to 
the  street  in  front  of  the  theatre,  where,  on  the  pavement  with  other  conspirators  yet 
unknown,  among  them  one  described  as  a  low-browed  villain,  he  awaits  the  appointed 
moment.  Booth  himself,  impatient,  enters  the  vestibule  of  the  theatre  from  the  front 
and  asks  the  time.  He  is  referred  to  the  clock,  and  returns.  Presently,  as  the  hour  of 
ten  o'clock  approached,  one  of  his  guilty  associates  called  the  time;  they  wait;  again, 
as  the  moments  elapsed,  this  conspirator  upon  watch  called  the  time;  again,  as  the 
appointed  hour  draws  nigh,  he  calls  the  time;  and  finally,  when  the  fatal  moment 
arrives,  he  repeats  in  a  louder  tone,  "  Ten  minutes  past  ten  o'clock!"  Ten  minutes 
past  ten  o'clock  !  The  hour  has  come  when  the  red  right  hand  of  these  murderous 
conspirators  should  strike,  and  the  dreadful  deed  of  assassination  be  done. 


398  APPENDIX. 

Booth,  at  the  appointed  moment,  entered  the  theatre,  ascended  to  the  dress-circle, 
passed  to  the  right,  paused  a  moment,  looking  down,  doubtless  to  see  if  Spangler  was 
at  his  post,  and  approached  the  outer  door  of  the  close  passage  leading  to  the  box 
occupied  by  the  President,  pressed  it  open,  passed  in,  and  closed  the  passage  door 
behind  him.  Spangler's  bar  was  in  its  place,  and  was  readily  adjusted  by  Booth  in  the 
mortise,  and  pressed  against  the  inner  side  of  the  door,  so  that  he  was  secure  from 
interruption  from  without.  He  passes  on  to  the  next  door,  immediately  behind  the 
President,  and  there  stopping,  looks  through  the  aperture  in  the  door  into  the  Presi 
dent's  box,  and  deliberately  observes  the  precise  position  of  his  victim,  seated  in  the 
chair  which  had  been  prepared  by  the  conspirators  as  the  altar  for  the  sacrifice,  looking 
calmly  and  quietly  down  upon  the  glad  and  grateful  people  whom  by  his  fidelity  he  had 
saved  from  the  peril  which  had  threatened  the  destruction  of  their  government,  and  all 
they  held  dear  this  side  of  the  grave,  and  whom  he  had  come  upon  invitation  to  greet 
with  his  presence,  with  the  words  still  lingering  upon  his  lips  which  he  had  uttered  with 
uncovered  head  and  uplifted  hand  before  God  and  his  country,  when  on  the  4th  of  last 
March  he  took  again  the  oath  to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution,  declar 
ing  that  he  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  great  office  "  with  malice  toward  none  — 
with  charity  for  all."  In  a  moment  more,  strengthened  by  the  knowledge  that  his 
co-conspirators  were  all  at  their  posts,  seven  at  least  of  them  present  in  the  city,  two 
of  them,  Mudd  and  Arnold,  at  their  appointed  places,  watching  for  his  coming,  this 
hired  assassin  moves  stealthily  through  the  door,  the  fastenings  of  which  had  been 
removed  to  facilitate  his  entrance,  fires  upon  his  victim,  and  the  martyr  spirit  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  ascends  to  God. 

"  Treason  has  done  his  worst;    nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further." 

At  the  same  hour,  when  these  accused  and  their  co-conspirators  in  Richmond  and 
Canada,  by  the  hand  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  inflicted  this  mortal  wound  which  deprived 
the  republic  of  its  defender,  and  filled  this  land  from  ocean  to  ocean  with  a  strange, 
great  sorrow,  Payne,  a  very  demon  in  human  form,  with  the  words  of  falsehood  upon 
his  lips,  that  he  was  the  bearer  of  a  message  from  the  physician  of  the  venerable  Sec 
retary  of  State,  sweeps  by  his  servant,  encounters  his  son,  who  protests  that  the  assassin 
shall  not  disturb  his  father,  prostrate  on  a  bed  of  sickness,  and  receives  for  answer  the 
assassin's  blow  from  the  revolver  in  his  hand,  repeated  again  and  again,  rushes  into  the 
room,  is  encountered  by  Major  Seward,  inflicts  wound  after  wound  upon  him  with  his 
murderous  knife,  is  encountered  by  Hansell  and  Robinson,  each  of  whom  he  also 
wounds,  springs  upon  the  defenseless  and  feeble  Secretary  of  State,  stabs  first  on  one 
side  of  his  throat,  then  on  the  other,  again  in  the  face,  and  is  only  prevented  from 
literally  hacking  out  his  life  by  the  persistence  and  courage  of  the  attendant  Robinson. 
He  turns  to  flee,  and,  his  giant  arm  and  murderous  hand  for  a  moment  paralyzed  by 
the  consciousness  of  guilt,  he  drops  his  weapons  of  death,  one  in  the  house,  the  other 
at  the  door,  where  they  were  taken  up,  and  are  here  now  to  bear  witness  against  him. 
He  attempts  escape  on  the  horse  which  Booth  and  Mudd  had  procured  of  Gardner, 
with  what  success  has  already  been  stated. 

Atzerodt,  near  midnight,  returns  to  the  stable  of  Naylor  the  horse  which  he  had 
procured  for  this  work  of  murder,  having  been  interrupted  in  the  execution  of  the  part 
assigned  him  at  the  Kirkwood  House  by  the  timely  coming  of  citizens  to  the  defense  of 


APPENDIX.  399 

the  Vice-President,  and  creeps  into  the  Pennsylvania  House  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing  with  another  of  the  conspirators,  yet  unknown.  There  he  remained  until  about  five 
o'clock,  when  he  left,  found  his  way  to  Georgetown,  pawned  one  of  his  revolvers,  now 
in  court,  and  fled  northward  into  Maryland. 

He  is  traced  to  Montgomery  County,  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Metz,  on  the  Sunday 
succeeding  the  murder,  where,  as  is  proved  by  the  testimony  of  three  witnesses,  he  said 
that  if  the  man  that  was  to  follow  General  Grant  had  followed  him,  it  was  likely  that 
Grant  was  shot.  To  one  of  these  witnesses  (Mr.  Layman)  he  said  he  did  not  think 
Grant  had  been  killed;  or  if  he  had  been  killed  he  was  killed  by  a  man  who  got  on  the 
cars  at  the  same  time  that  Grant  did;  thus  disclosing  most  clearly  that  one  of  his  co- 
conspirators  was  assigned  the  task  of  killing  and  murdering  General  Grant,  and  that 
Atzerodt  knew  that  General  Grant  had  left  the  city  of  Washington,  a  fact  which  is  not 
disputed,  on  the  Friday  evening  of  the  murder,  by  the  evening  train.  Thus  this  intended 
victim  of  the  conspiracy  escaped,  for  that  night,  the  knives  and  revolvers  of  Atzerodt 
and  O'Laughlin  and  Payne  and  Herold  and  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt  and,  perchance, 
Harper  and  Caldwell,  and  twenty  others,  who  were  then  here  lying  in  wait  for  his  life. 

In  the  mean  time  Booth  and  Herold,  taking  the  route  before  agreed  upon,  make 
directly  after  the  assassination  for  the  Anacostia  bridge.  Booth  crosses  first,  gives  his 
name,  passes  the  guard,  and  is  speedily  followed  by  Herold.  They  make  their  way 
directly  to  Surrattsville,  where  Herold  calls  to  Lloyd,  "  Bring  out  those  things,"  show 
ing  that  there  had  been  communication  between  them  and  Mrs.  Surratt  after  her  return. 
Both  the  carbines  being  in  readiness,  according  to  Mary  E.  Surratt's  directions,  both 
were  brought  out.  They  took  but  one.  Booth  declined  to  carry  the  other,  saying  that 
his  limb  was  broken.  They  then  declared  that  they  had  murdered  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  State.  They  then  make  their  way  directly  to  the  house  of  the  prisoner 
Mudd,  assured  of  safety  and  security.  They  arrived  early  in  the  morning  before  day, 
and  no  man  knows  at  what  hour  they  left.  Herold  rode  towards  Bryantown  with  Mudd 
about  three  o'clock  that  afternoon,  in  the  vicinity  of  which  place  he  parted  with  him, 
remaining  in  the  swamp,  and  was  afterwards  seen  returning  the  same  afternoon  in  the 
direction  of  Mudd's  house,  about  which  time,  a  little  before  sundown,  Mudd  returned 
from  Bryantown  towards  his  home.  This  village  at  the  time  Mudd  was  in  it  was 
thronged  with  soldiers  in  pursuit  of  the  murderers  of  the  President,  and  although  great 
care  has  been  taken  by  the  defense  to  deny  that  any  one  said  in  the  presence  of  Dr. 
Mudd,  either  there  or  elsewhere  on  that  day,  who  had  committed  this  crime,  yet  it  is  in 
evidence  by  two  witnesses,  whose  truthfulness  no  man  questions,  that  upon  Mudd's 
return  to  his  own  house  that  afternoon,  he  stated  that  Booth  was  the  murderer  of  the 
President,  and  Boyle  the  murderer  of  Secretary  Seward,  but  took  care  to  make  the 
further  remark  that  Booth  had  brothers,  and  he  did  not  know  which  of  them  had  done 
the  act.  When  did  Dr.  Mudd  learn  that  Booth  had  brothers?  And  what  is  still  more 
pertinent  to  this  inquiry,  from  whom  did  he  learn  that  either  John  Wilkes  Booth  or  any 
of  his  brothers  had  murdered  the  President?  It  is  clear  that  Booth  remained  in  his 
house  until  some  time  in  the  afternoon  of  Saturday;  that  Herold  left  the  house  alone, 
as  one  of  the  witnesses  states,  being  seen  to  pass  the  window;  that  he  alone  of  these 
two  assassins  was  in  the  company  of  Dr.  Mudd  on  his  way  to  Bryantown.  It  does  not 
appear  when  Herold  returned  to  Mudd's  house.  It  is  a  confession  of  Dr.  Mudd  him 
self,  proven  by  one  of  the  witnesses,  that  Booth  left  his  house  on  crutches  and  went  in 
the  direction  of  the  swamp.  How  long  he  remained  there,  and  what  became  of  the 
horses  which  Booth  and  Herold  rode  to  his  house  and  which  were  put  into  his  stable, 


400  APPENDIX. 

are  facts  nowhere  disclosed  by  the  evidence.  The  owners  testify  that  they  have  never 
seen  the  horses  since.  The  accused  give  no  explanation  of  the  matter,  and  when  Her- 
old  and  Booth  were  captured  they  had  not  these  horses  in  their  possession.  How  comes 
it  that,  on  Mudd's  return  from  Bryantown,  on  the  evening  of  Saturday,  in  his  conver 
sation  with  Mr.  Hardy  and  Mr.  Farrell,  the  witnesses  before  referred  to,  he  gave  the 
name  of  Booth  as  the  murderer  of  the  President,  and  that  of  Boyle  as  the  murderer  of 
Secretary  Seward  and  his  son,  and  carefully  avoided  intimating  to  either  that  Booth  had 
come  to  his  house  early  that  day  and  had  remained  there  until  the  afternoon;  that  he 
left  him  in  his  house  and  had  furnished  him  a  razor  with  which  Booth  attempted  to  disguise 
himself  by  shaving  off  his  moustache?  How  comes  it,  also,  that,  upon  being  asked  by 
those  two  witnesses  whether  the  Booth  who  killed  the  President  was  the  one  who  had 
been  there  last  fall,  he  answered  that  he  did  not  know  whether  it  was  that  man  or  one 
of  his  brothers,  but  he  understood  he  had  some  brothers,  and  added,  that  if  it  was  the 
Booth  who  was  there  last  fall,  he  knew  that  one,  but  concealed  the  fact  that  this  man 
had  been  at  his  house  on  that  day  and  was  then  at  his  house,  and  had  attempted  in  his 
presence  to  disguise  his  person?  He  was  sorry,  very  sorry,  that  the  thing  had  occurred, 
but  not  so  sorry  as  to  be  willing  to  give  any  evidence  to  these  two  neighbors,  who  were 
manifestly  honest  and  upright  men,  that  the  murderer  had  been  harbored  in  his  house 
all  day,  and  was  probably  at  that  moment,  as  his  own  subsequent  confession  shows, 
lying  concealed  in  his  house  or  near  by,  subject  to  his  call.  This  is  the  man  who 
undertakes  to  show  by  his  own  declaration,  offered  in  evidence  against  my  protest,  of 
what  he  said  afterwards,  on  Sunday  afternoon,  the  1 6th,  to  his  kinsman,  Dr.  George 
D.  Mudd,  to  whom  he  then  stated  that  the  assassination  of  the  President  was  a  most 
damnable  act  —  a  conclusion  in  which  most  men  will  agree  with  him,  and  to  establish 
which  his  testimony  was  not  needed.  But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  this  accused  did 
not  intimate  that  the  man  whom  he  knew  the  evening  before  was  the  murderer  had 
found  refuge  in  his  house,  had  disguised  his  person,  and  sought  concealment  in  the 
swamp  upon  the  crutches  which  he  had  provided  for  him.  Why  did  he  conceal  this 
fact  from  his  kinsman?  After  the  church  services  were  over,  however,  in  another  con 
versation  on  their  way  home,  he  did  tell  Dr.  George  Mudd  that  two  suspicious  persons 
had  been  at  his  house,  who  had  come  there  a  little  before  daybreak  on  Saturday  morn 
ing;  that  one  of  them  had  a  broken  leg,  which  he  bandaged;  that  they  got  something 
to  eat  at  his  house;  that  they  seemed  to  be  laboring  under  more  excitement  than  prob 
ably  would  result  from  the  injury;  that  they  said  they  came  from  Bryantown,  and 
inquired  the  way  to  Parson  Wilmer's;  that  while  at  his  house  one  of  them  called  for 
a  razor  and  shaved  himself.  The  witness  says,  "  I  do  not  remember  whether  he  said 
that  this  party  shaved  off  his  whiskers  or  his  moustache,  but  he  altered  somewhat,  or 
probably  materially,  his  features."  Finally,  the  prisoner,  Dr.  Mudd,  told  this  witness 
that  he,  in  company  with  the  younger  of  the  two  men,  went  down  the  road  towards 
Bryantown  in  search  of  a  vehicle  to  take  the  wounded  man  away  from  his  house.  How 
comes  it  that  he  concealed  in  this  conversation  the  fact  proved,  that  he  went  with 
Herold  towards  Bryantown  and  left  Herold  outside  of  the  town?  How  comes  it  that 
in  this  second  conversation,  on  Sunday,  insisted  upon  here  with  such  pertinacity  as 
evidence  for  the  defense,  but  which  had  never  been  called  for  by  the  prosecution,  he 
concealed  from  his  kinsman  the  fact  which  he  had  disclosed  the  day  before  to  Hardy 
and  Farrell,  that  it  was  Booth  who  assassinated  the  President,  and  the  fact  which  is 
now  disclosed  by  his  other  confessions  given  in  evidence  for  the  prosecution,  that  it  was 
Booth  whom  he  had  sheltered,  concealed  in  his  house,  and  aided  to  his  hiding  place  in 


APPENDIX.  401 

the  swamp?  He  volunteers  as  evidence  his  further  statement,  however,  to  this  witness, 
that  on  Sunday  evening  he  requested  the  witness  to  state  to  the  military  authorities  that 
two  suspicious  persons  had  been  at  his  house,  and  see  if  anything  could  be  made  of  it. 
He  did  not  tell  the  witness  what  became  of  Herold,  and  where  he  parted  with  him  on 
the  way  to  Bryantown.  How  comes  it  that  when  he  was  in  Bryantown  on  the  Saturday 
evening  before,  when  he  knew  that  Booth  was  then  at  his  house,  and  that  Booth  was- 
the  murderer  of  the  President,  he  did  not  himself  state  it  to  the  military  authorities- 
then  in  that  village,  as  he  well  knew?  It  is  difficult  to  see  what  kindled  his  suspicions- 
on  Sunday,  if  none  were  in  his  mind  on  Saturday,  when  he  was  in  possession  of  the 
fact  that  Booth  had  murdered  the  President  and  was  then  secreting  and  disguising; 
himself  in  the  prisoner's  own  house. 

His  conversation  with  Gardner  on  the  same  Sunday  at  the  church  is  also  introduced; 
here  to  relieve  him  from  the  overwhelming  evidences  of  his  guilt.  He  communicates' 
nothing  to  Gardner  of  the  fact  that  Booth  had  been  in  his  house;  nothing  of  the  fact, 
that  he  knew  the  day  before  that  Booth  had  murdered  the  President;  nothing  of  the1 
fact  that  Booth  had  disguised  or  attempted  to  disguise  himself;  nothing  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  gone  with  Booth's  associate,  Herold,  in  search  of  a  vehicle,  the  more  speedily 
to  expedite  their  flight;  nothing  of  the  fact  that  Booth  had  found  concealment  in  the 
woods  and  swamp  near  his  house  upon  the  crutches  which  he  had  furnished  him.  He 
contents  himself  with  merely  stating  "  that  we  ought  to  raise  immediately  a  home  guard 
to  hunt  up  all  suspicious  persons  passing  through  our  section  of  country  and  arrest 
them,  for  there  were  two  suspicious  persons  at  my  house  yesterday  morning." 

It  would  have  looked  more  like  aiding  justice  and  arresting  felons  if  he  had  put  in 
execution  his  project  of  a  home  guard  on  Saturday,  and  made  it  effective  by  the  arrest 
of  the  man  then  in  his  house  who  had  lodged  with  him  last  fall,  with  whom  he  had 
gone  to  purchase  one  of  the  very  horses  employed  in  this  flight  after  the  assassination, 
whom  he  had  visited  last  winter  in  Washington,  and  to  whom  he  had  pointed  out  the 
very  route  by  which  he  had  escaped  by  way  of  his  house,  whom  he  had  again  visited  on 
the  jd  of  last  March,  preparatory  to  the  commission  of  this  great  crime,  and  who  he 
knew,  when  he  sheltered  and  concealed  him  in  the  woods  on  Saturday,  was  not  merely 
a  suspicious  person,  but  was,  in  fact,  the  murderer  and  assassin  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
While  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  say  here,  as  I  said  before,  when  these  declarations  uttered 
by  the  accused  on  Sunday,  the  i6th,  to  Gardner  and  George  D.  Mudd,  were  attempted 
to  be  offered  on  the  part  of  the  accused,  that  they  are  in  no  sense  evidence,  and  by  the 
law  were  wholly  inadmissible,  yet  I  state  it  as  my  conviction  that,  being  upon  the  record1 
upon  motion  of  the  accused  himself,  so  far  as  these  declarations  to  Gardner  and  George 
D.  Mudd  go,  they  are  additional  indications  of  the  guilt  of  the  accused  in  this,  that 
they  are  manifestly  suppressions  of  the  truth  and  suggestions  of  falsehood  and  decep 
tion;  they  are  but  the  utterances  and  confessions  of  guilt. 

To  Lieutenant  Lovett,  Joshua  Lloyd,  and  Simon  Gavican,  who,  in  pursuit  of  the- 
murderer,  visited  his  house  on  the  i8th  of  April,  the  Tuesday  after  the  murder,  he- 
denied  positively,  upon  inquiry,  that  two  men  had  passed  his  house,  or  had  come  to  his- 
house  on  the  morning  after  the  assassination.  Two  of  these  witnesses  swear  positively 
to  his  having  made  the  denial,  and  the  other  says  he  hesitated  to  answer  the  question^ 
he  put  to  him;  all  of  them  agree  that  he  afterwards  admitted  that  two  men  had  been> 
there,  one  of  whom  had  a  broken  limb,  which  he  had  set;  and  when  asked  by  thi? 
witness  who  that  man  was,  he  said  he  did  not  know  —  that  the  man  was  a  stranger  to- 
him,  and  that  the  two  had  been  there  but  a  short  time.  Lloyd  asked  him.  if  he  had 


402  APPENDIX. 

ever  seen  any  of  the  parties — Booth,  Herold,  and  Surratt,  —  and  he  said  he  had  never 
seen  them;  while  it  is  positively  proved  that  he  was  acquainted  with  John  H.  Surratt, 
who  had  been  in  his  house;  that  he  knew  Booth,  and  had  introduced  Booth  to  Surratt 
last  winter.  Afterwards,  on  Friday,  the  2ist,  he  admitted  to  Lloyd  that  he  had  been 
introduced  to  Booth  last  fall,  and  that  this  man  who  came  to  his  house  on  Saturday,  the 
1 5th,  remained  there  from  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  about  four  in  the 
afternoon;  that  one  of  them  left  his  house  on  horseback,  and  the  other  walking.  In 
the  first  conversation  he  denied  ever  having  seen  these  men. 

Colonel  Wells  also  testifies  that,  in  his  conversation  with  Dr.  Mudcl  on  Friday  the 
2ist,  the  prisoner  said  that  he  had  gone  to  Bryantown,  or  near  Bryantown,  to  see  some 
friends  on  Saturday,  and  that  as  he  came  back  to  his  own  house  he  saw  the  person  he 
afterwards  supposed  to  be  Herold  passing  to  the  left  of  his  house  toward  the  barn,  but 
that  he  did  not  see  the  other  person  at  all  after  he  left  him  in  his  own  house  about  one 
o'clock.  If  this  statement  be  true,  how  did  Dr.  Mudd  see  the  same  person  leave  his 
house  on  crutches?  He  further  stated  to  this  witness  that  he  returned  to  his  own  house 
about  four 'o'clock  in  the  afternoon;  that  he  did  not  know  this  wounded  man;  said  he 
could  not  recognize  him  from  the  photograph  which  is  of  record  here,  but  admitted 
that  he  had  met  Booth  some  time  in  November,  when  he  had  some  conversation  with 
him  about  lands  and  horses;  that  Booth  had  remained  with  him  that  night  in  Novem 
ber,  and  on  the  next  day  had  purchased  a  horse.  He  said  he  had  not  again  seen  Booth 
from  the  time  of  the  introduction  in  November  up  to  his  arrival  at  his  house  on  the 
Saturday  morning  after  the  assassination.  Is  not  this  a  confession  that  he  did  see  John 
Wilkes  Booth  on  that  morning  at  his  house  and  knew  it  was  Booth?  If  he  did  not 
know  him,  how  came  he  to  make  this  statement  to  the  witness:  that  "  he  had  not  seen 
Booth  after  November  prior  to  his  arrival  there  on  the  Saturday  morning  "? 

He  had  said  before  to  the  same  witness  he  did  not  know  the  wounded  man.  He 
said  further  to  Colonel  Wells,  that  when  he  went  upstairs  after  their  arrival  he  noticed 
that  the  person  he  supposed  \.Q  be  Booth  had  shaved  off  his  moustache.  Is  it  not  infer 
able  from  this  declaration  that  he  then  supposed  him  to  be  Booth  ?  Yet  he  declared  the 
same  afternoon,  and  while  Booth  was  in  his  own  house,  that  Booth  was  the  murderer 
of  the  President.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  statements  made  to  this  witness  by  the 
prisoner  was  that  he  heard  for  the  first  time  on  Sunday  morning,  or  late  in  the  evening  of 
Saturday,  that  the  President  had  been  murdered!  From  whom  did  he  hear  it?  The 
witness  (Colonel  Wells)  volunteers  his  "impression"  that  Dr.  Mudd  had  said  he  had 
heard  it  after  the  persons  had  left  his  house.  If  the  "  impression  "  of  the  witness  thus 
volunteered  is  to  be  taken  as  evidence  —  and  the  counsel  for  the  accused,  judging  from 
their  manner,  seem  to  think  it  ought  to  be  —  let  this  question  be  answered:  how  could 
Dr.  Mudd  have  made  that  impression  upon  anybody  truthfully,  when  it  is  proved  by 
Farrell  and  Hardy  that  on  his  return  from  Bryantown,  on  Saturday  afternoon,  he  not 
only  stated  that  the  President,  Mr.  Seward,  and  his  son  had  been  assassinated,  but  that 
Boyle  had  assassinated  Mr.  Seward,  and  Booth  had  assassinated  the  President? 
Add  to  this  the  fact  that  he  said  to  this  witness  that  he  left  his  own  house  at  one  o'clock 
and  when  he  returned  the  men  were  gone,  yet  it  is  in  evidence,  by  his  own  declarations, 
that  Booth  left  his  house  at  four  o'clock  on  crutches,  and  he  must  have  been  there  to 
have  seen  it  or  he  could  not  have  known  the  fact. 

Mr.  Williams  testifies  that  he  was  at  Mudd's  house  on  Tuesday,  the  i8th  of  April, 
when  he  said  that  strangers  had  not  been  that  way,  and  also  declared  that  he  heard, 
for  the  first  time,  of  the  assassination  of  the  President  on  Sunday  morning  at  church. 


APPENDIX.  403 

Afterwards,  on  Friday,  the  2ist,  Mr.  Williams  asked  him  concerning  the  men  who  had 
been  at  his  house,  one  of  whom  had  a  broken  limb,  and  he  confessed  they  had  been 
there.  Upon  being  asked  if  they  were  Booth  and  Herold,  he  said  they  were  not  — 
that  he  knew  Booth.  I  think  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  he  did  know  Booth  when  we 
consider  the  testimony  of  Wiechmann,  of  Norton,  of  Evans,  and  all  the  testimony  just 
referred  to,  wherein  he  declares,  himself,  that  he  not  only  knew  him,  but  that  he  had 
lodged  with  him,  and  that  he  had  himself  gone  with  him  when  he  purchased  his  horse 
from  Gardner  last  fall,  for  the  very  purpose  of  aiding  the  flight  of  himself  or  some  of 
his  confederates. 

All  these  circumstances  taken  together,  which,  as  we  have  seen  upon  high  authority, 
are  stronger  as  evidences  of  guilt  than  even  direct  testimony,  leave  no  further  room  for 
argument  and  no  rational  doubt  that  Doctor  Samuel  A.  Mudd  was  as  certainly  in  this 
conspiracy  as  were  Booth  and  Herold,  whom  he  sheltered  and  entertained;  receiving 
them  under  cover  of  darkness  on  the  morning  after  the  assassination,  concealing  them 
throughout  that  day  from  the  hand  of  offended  justice,  and  aiding  them,  by  every 
endeavor,  to  pursue  their  way  successfully  to  their  co-conspirator,  Arnold,  at  Fortress 
Monroe,  and  in  which  direction  they  fled  until  overtaken  and  Booth  was  slain. 

We  next  find  Herold  and  his  confederate  Booth,  after  their  departure  from  the  house 
of  Mudd,  across  the  Potomac  in  the  neighborhood  of  Port  Conway,  on  Monday,  the 
24th  of  of  April,  conveyed  in  a  wagon.  There  Herold,  in  order  to  obtain  the  aid  of 
Captain  Jett,  Ruggles,  and  Bainbridge,  of  the  confederate  army,  said  to  Jett,  "We 
are  the  assassinators  of  the  President  ";  that  this  was  his  brother  with  him,  who,  with 
himself,  belonged  to  A.  P.  Hill's  corps;  that  his  brother  had  been  wounded  at  Peters 
burg;  that  their  names  were  Boyd.  He  requested  Jett  and  his  rebel  companions  to 
take  them  out  of  the  lines.  After  this  Booth  joined  these  parties,  was  placed  on  Rug- 
gles's  horse,  and  crossed  the  Rappahannock  River.  They  then  proceeded  to  the  house 
of  Garrett,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Port  Royal,  and  nearly  midway  between  Washing 
ton  City  and  Fortress  Monroe,  where  they  were  to  have  joined  Arnold.  Before  these 
rebel  guides  and  guards  parted  with  them,  Herold  confessed  they  were  traveling  under 
assumed  names  —  that  his  own  name  was  Herold,  and  that  the  name  of  the  wounded 
man  was  John  Wilkes  Booth,  "  who  had  killed  the  President."  The  rebels  left  Booth 
at  Garrett's,  where  Herold  revisited  him  from  time  to  time,  until  they  were  captured. 
At  two  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning,  the  26th,  a  party  of  United  States  officers  and 
soldiers  surrounded  Garrett's  barn  where  Booth  and  Herold  lay  concealed,  and  demanded 
their  surrender.  Booth  cursed  Herold,  calling  him  a  coward,  and  bade  him  go,  when 
Herold  came  out  and  surrendered  himself,  was  taken  into  custody,  and  is  now  brought 
into  court.  The  barn  was  then  set  on  fire,  when  Booth  sprang  to  his  feet,  amid  the 
flames  that  were  kindling  about  him,  carbine  in  hand,  and  approached  the  door,  seek 
ing,  by  the  flashing  light  of  the  fire,  to  find  some  new  victim  for  his  murderous  hand, 
when  he  was  shot,  as  he  deserved  to  be,  by  Sergeant  Corbett,  in  order  to  save  his  com 
rades  from  wounds  or  death  by  the  hands  of  this  desperate  assassin.  Upon  his  person 
was  found  the  following  bill  of  exchange :  — 

"  No.  1492.  The  Ontario  Bank,  Montreal  Branch.  Exchange  for  £61  12s.  lod. 
Montreal,  27th  October,  1864.  Sixty  days  after  sight  of  this  first  of  exchange,  second 
and  third  of  the  same  tenor  and  date,  pay  to  the  order  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth  £61  12s. 
io</.  sterling,  value  received,  and  charge  to  the  account  of  this  office.  H.  Stanus, 
manager.  To  Messrs.  Glynn,  Mills  &  Co.,  London. 

Thus  fell,  by  the  hands  of  one  of  the  defenders  of  the  republic,  this  hired  assassin, 


404  APPENDIX. 

who,  for  a  price,  murdered  Abraham  Lincoln,  bearing  upon  his  person,  as  this  bill  of 
exchange  testifies,  additional  evidence  of  the  fact  that  he  had  undertaken,  in  aid  of  the 
rebellion,  this  work  of  assassination  by  the  hands  of  himself  and  his  confederates,  for 
such  sum  as  the  accredited  agents  of  Jefferson  Davis  might  pay  him  or  them,  out  of  the 
funds  of  the  Confederacy,  which,  as  is  in  evidence,  they  had  in  "any  amount"  in 
Canada  for  the  purpose  of  rewarding  conspirators,  spies,  poisoners,  and  assassins,  who- 
might  take  service  under  their  false  commissions,  and  do  the  work  of  the  incendiary 
and  the  murderer  upon  the  lawful  representatives  of  the  American  people,  to  whom 
had  been  entrusted  the  care  of  the  republic,  the  maintenance  of  the  Constitution,  and 
the  execution  of  the  laws. 

The  court  will  remember  that  it  is  in  the  testimony  of  Merritt  and  Montgomery  and 
Conover  that  Thompson  and  Sanders  and  Clay  and  Cleary  made  their  boasts  that  they 
had  money  in  Canada  for  this  very  purpose.  Nor  is  it  to  be  overlooked  or  forgotten 
that  the  officers  of  the  Ontario  Bank  at  Montreal  testify  that  during  the  current  year  of 
this  conspiracy  and  assassination  Jacob  Thompson  had  on  deposit  in  that  bank  the  sum 
of  six  hundred  and  forty-nine  thousand  dollars,  and  that  these  deposits  to  the  credit  of 
Jacob  Thompson  accrued  from  the  negotiation  of  bills  of  exchange  drawn  by  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  of  the  so-called  Confederate  States  on  Frazier,  Trenholm,  &  Co., 
of  Liverpool,  who  were  known  to  be  the  financial  agents  of  the  Confederate  States. 
With  an  undrawn  deposit  in  this  bank  of  four  hundred  and  fifty-five  dollars,  which  has 
remained  to  his  credit  since  October  last,  and  with  an  unpaid  bill  of  exchange  drawn 
by  the  same  bank  upon  London,  in  his  possession  and  found  upon  his  person,  Booth 
ends  his  guilty  career  in  this  work  of  conspiracy  and  blood  in  April,  1865,  as  he  began 
it  in  October,  1864,  in  combination  with  Jefferson  Davis,  Jacob  Thompson,  George  N. 
Sanders,  Clement  C.  Clay,  William  C.  Cleary,  Beverly  Tucker,  and  other  co-conspir 
ators,  making  use  of  the  money  of  the  rebel  confederation  to  aid  in  the  execution  and 
in  the  flight,  bearing  at  the  moment  of  his  death  upon  his  person  their  money,  part  of 
the  price  which  they  paid  for  his  great  crime,  to  aid  him  in  its  consummation  and  secure 
him  afterwards  from  arrest  and  the  just  penalty  which  by  the  law  of  God  and  the  law 
of  man  is  denounced  against  treasonable  conspiracy  and  murder. 

By  all  the  testimony  in  the  case  it  is,  in  my  judgment,  made  as  clear  as  any  transac 
tion  can  be  shown  by  human  testimony,  that  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt 
and  the  several  accused,  David  E.  Herold,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Ltwis  Payne,  Michael 
O'Laughlin,  Edward  Spangler,  Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  and  Samuel  A.  Mudd, 
did,  with  intent  to  aid  the  existing  rebellion  and  to  subvert  the  Constitution  and  laws, 
of  the  United  States,  in  the  month  of  October  last  and  thereafter,  combine,  confederate, 
and  conspire  with  Jefferson  Davis,  George  N.  Sanders,  Beverly  Tucker,  Jacob  Thomp 
son,  William  C.  Cleary,  Clement  C.  Clay,  George  Harper,  George  Young,  and  others- 
unknown,  to  kill  and  murder,  within  the  military  department  of  Washington,  and 
within  the  intrenched  fortifications  and  military  lines  thereof,  Abraham  Lincoln,  then 
President  of  the  United  States  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof; 
Andrew  Johnson,  Vice-President  of  the  United  States;  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary 
of  State;  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  lieutenant  general  in  command  of  the  armies  of  the 
United  States;  and  that  Jefferson  Davis,  the  chief  of  this  rebellion,  was  the  instigator 
and  procurer,  through  his  accredited  agents  in  Canada,  of  this  treasonable  conspiracy. 

It  is  also  submitted  to  the  court,  that  it  is  clearly  established  by  the  testimony  that 
John  Wilkes  Booth,  in  pursuance  of  this  conspiracy,  so  entered  into  by  him  and  the 
accused,  did,  on  the  night  of  the  I4th  of  April,  1865,  within  the  military  department 


APPENDIX.  405 

of  Washington,  and  the  intrenched  fortifications  and  military  lines  thereof,  and  with 
the  intent  laid,  inflict  a  mortal  wound  upon  Abraham  Lincoln,  then  President  and  Com 
mander -in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  whereof  he  died;  that  in 
pursuance  of  the  same  conspiracy  and  within  the  said  department  and  intrenched  lines, 
Lewis  Payne  assaulted,  with  intent  to  kill  and  murder,  William  H.  Seward,  then  Secre 
tary  of  State  of  the  United  States;  that  George  A.  Atzerodt,  in  pursuance  of  the  same 
conspiracy,  and  within  the  said  department,  laid  in  wait,  with  intent  to  kill  and  murder 
Andrew  Johnson,  then  Vice-President  of  the  United  States;  that  Michael  O'Laughlin, 
within  said  department,  and  in  pursuance  of  said  conspiracy,  laid  in  wait  to  kill  and 
murder  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then  in  command  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States;  and 
that  Mary  E.  Surratt,  David  E.  Herold,  Samuel  Arnold,  Samuel  A.  Mudd,  and  Edward 
Spangler  did  encourage,  aid,  and  abet  the  commission  of  said  several  acts  in  the  prose 
cution  of  said  conspiracy. 

If  this  treasonable  conspiracy  has  not  been  wholly  executed;  if  the  several  executive 
•officers  of  the  United  States  and  the  commander  of  its  armies,  to  kill  and  murder  whom 
the  said  several  accused  thus  confederated  and  conspired,  have  not  each  and  all  fallen 
by  the  hands  of  these  conspirators,  thereby  leaving  the  people  of  the  United  States 
without  a  President  or  Vice-President;  without  a  Secretary  of  State,  who  alone  is 
clothed  with  authority  by  the  law  to  call  an  election  to  fill  the  vacancy,  should  any 
arise,  in  the  offices  of  President  and  Vice-President;  and  without  a  lawful  commander 
of  the  armies  of  the  republic,  it  is  only  because  the  conspirators  were  deterred  by  the 
vigilance  and  fidelity  of  the  executive  officers,  whose  lives  were  mercifully  protected  on 
that  night  of  murder  by  the  care  of  the  Infinite  Being  who  has  thus  far  saved  the  repub 
lic  and  crowned  its  arms  with  victory. 

If  this  conspiracy  was  thus  entered  into  by  the  accused;  if  John  Wilkes  Booth  did 
kill  and  murder  Abraham  Lincoln  in  pursuance  thereof;  if  Lewis  Payne  did,  in  pursu 
ance  of  said  conspiracy,  assault  with  intent  to  kill  and  murder  William  H.  Seward,  as 
stated,  and  if  the  several  parties  accused  did  commit  the  several  acts  alleged  against 
them  in  the  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy,  then  it  is  the  law  that  all  the  parties  to  that 
conspiracy,  whether  present  at  the  time  of  its  execution  or  not,  whether  on  trial  before 
this  court  or  not,  are  alike  guilty  of  the  several  acts  done  by  each  in  the  execution  of 
the  common  design.  What  these  conspirators  did  in  the  execution  of  this  conspiracy 
by  the  hand  of  one  of  their  co-conspirators  they  did  themselves;  his  act,  done  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  common  design,  was  the  act  of  all  the  parties  to  the  treasonable 
combination,  because  done  in  execution  and  furtherance  of  their  guilty  and  treasonable 
agreement. 

As  we  have  seen,  this  is  the  rule,  whether  all  the  conspirators  are  indicted  or  not; 
whether  they  are  all  on  trial  or  not.  "It  is  not  material  what  the  nature  of  the  indict 
ment  is,  provided  the  offense  involve  a  conspiracy.  Upon  indictment  for  murder,  for 
instance,  if  it  appear  that  others,  together  with  the  prisoner,  conspired  to  perpetrate  the 
crime,  the  act  of  one  done  in  pursuance  of  that  intention  would  be  evidence  against 
the  rest."  (i  Whar.  706.)  To  the  same  effect  are  the  words  of  Chief  Justice  Mar 
shall,  before  cited,  that  whoever  leagued  in  a  general  conspiracy,  performed  any  part, 
however  MINUTE,  or  however  REMOTE,  from  the  scene  of  action,  are  guilty  as  princi 
pals.  In  this  treasonable  conspiracy  to  aid  the  existing  armed  rebellion  by  murdering 
the  executive  officers  of  the  United  States  and  the  commander  of  its  armies,  all  the 
parties  to  it  must  be  held  as  principals,  and  the  act  of  one  in  the  prosecution  of  the 
common  design  the  act  of  all. 


406  APPENDIX. 

I  leave  the  decision  of  this  dread  issue  with  the  court,  to  which  alone  it  belongs. 
It  is  for  you  to  say,  upon  your  oaths,  whether  the  accused  are  guilty. 

I  am  not  conscious  that  in  this  argument  I  have  made  any  erroneous  statement  of 
the  evidence,  or  drawn  any  erroneous  conclusions;  yet  I  pray  the  court,  out  of  tender 
regard  and  jealous  care  for  the  rights  of  the  accused,  to  see  that  no  error  of  mine,  if 
any  there  be,  shall  work  them  harm.  The  past  services  of  the  members  of  this  honor 
able  court  give  assurance  that,  without  fear,  favor,  or  affection,  they  will  discharge  with 
fidelity  the  duty  enjoined  upon  them  by  their  oaths.  Whatever  else  may  befall,  I  trust 
in  God  that  in  this,  as  in  every  other  American  court,  the  rights  of  the  whole  people 
will  be  respected,  and  that  the  republic  in  this,  its  supreme  hour  of  trial,  will  be  true 
to  itself  and  just  to  all  —  ready  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  humblest,  to  redress  every 
wrong,  to  avenge  every  crime,  to  vindicate  the  majesty  of  law,  and  to  maintain  invio 
late  the  Constitution,  whether  assailed  secretly  or  openly,  by  hosts  armed  with  gold,  or 
armed  with  steel. 


i 


-  si 

* 


*£?.-  £A 


THE  CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN    PRESIDENT   JOHNSON 
AND  JUDGE  HOLT. 

A  Paper  read  by  GEN.  HENRY  L.  BURNETT,  late  U.  S.   V.,  at  a  Meeting  of  the  Coin- 
mandery,  State  of  New  Vork,  Military  Order,  Loyal  Legion  ^  April  3,  1889. 

PERHAPS  no  incident  connected  with  the  trial  of  the  assassins  of  President  Lincoln 
created  more  general  interest  —  was  so  much  discussed  and  commented  upon  by  the 
public  press,  or  aroused  deeper  feeling  of  antagonism  and  bitterness  between  two  public 
men,  than  the  charge  by  President  Johnson  that  the  Judge  Advocate  General,  Judge 
Holt,  had  withheld  or  suppressed  the  recommendation  to  mercy  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  signed 
by  five  members  of  the  commission,  when  he  represented  to  him,  the  President,  the 
record  for  his  official  action.  While  this  charge  had  circulation  and  was  asserted  in  the 
press  during  the  time  Mr.  Johnson  was  occupying  the  presidential  office,  Mr.  Johnson 
never  openly  made  the  charge  until  after  his  term  had  expired,  some  time  in  1873. 

No  graver  charge  could  be  made  against  a  public  officer  than  this  against  Judge 
Holt,  and,  if  true,  no  more  cruel  and  treacherous  betrayal  of  a  public  trust  was  ever 
committed  by  a  man  in  high  official  position.  It  would  be  murderous  in  intent  and 
effect.  This  charge  rested,  so  far  as  human  testimony  went,  upon  the  solemn  assertion 
alone  of  President  Johnson,  and,  if  untrue,  was  one  of  the  most  cruel  wrongs  ever 
perpetrated  by  one  man  against  another.  I  propose  to  give  a  brief  abstract  of  the  testi 
mony  produced  by  Judge  Holt  to  disprove  this  charge,  and  also  a  statement  of  my 
connection  with,  and  what  little  personal  knowledge  I  had  of  the  matter. 

In  a  communication  addressed  to  the  Washington  Chronicle,  dated  August  25, 
1873,  Judge  Holt  gives  a  copy  of  a  letter  addressed  by  him  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  on 
the  I4th  of  that  month,  in  which  he  sets  forth  evidence  tending  to  disprove  the  charge 
originating  with  Andrew  Johnson,  of  his  suppression  of  the  petition,  signed  by  five  of 
the  nine  members  of  the  commission,  recommending,  in  consideration  of  her  age  and 
sex,  a  commutation  of  the  death  sentence  of  Mary  E.  Surratt  to  imprisonment  for  life 
in  the  penitentiary.  The  petition  read  as  follows :  '«  To  the  President :  The  undersigned, 
members  of  the  military  commission  appointed  to  try  the  persons  charged  with  the 
murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  etc.,  respectfully  represent  that  the  commission  have  been 
constrained  to  find  Mary  E.  Surratt  guilty,  upon  the  testimony,  of  the  assassination  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  late  President  of  the  United  States,  and  to  pronounce  upon  her,  as 
required  by  law,  the  sentence  of  death;  but  in  consideration  of  her  age  and  sex,  the 
undersigned  pray  your  Excellency,  if  it  is  consistent  with  your  sense  of  duty,  to  commute 
her  sentence  to  imprisonment  for  life  in  the  penitentiary." 

In  a  letter  dated  February  n,  1873,  addressed  to  Hon.  John  A.  Bingham,  one  of 
the  special  Judge  Advocates  during  the  trial,  Judge  Holt  states:  "  In  the  discharge  of 
my  duty  when  presenting  that  record  to  President  Johnson,  I  drew  his  attention  to  that 

407 


408  T]IE    CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 

recommendation,  and  he  read  it  in  my  presence,  and  before  approving  the  proceedings 
and  sentence.  He  and  I  were  together  alone  when  this  duty  on  his  part  and  on  mine 
was  performed.  .  .  .  The  President  and  myself  having,  as  already  stated,  been 
alone  at  the  time,  I  have  not  been  able  to  obtain  any  positive  proof  on  the  point, 
although  I  have  been  able  to  collect  circumstantial  evidence  enough  to  satisfy  any  un 
biased  mind  that  the  recommendation  was  seen  and  considered  by  the  President, 
when  he  examined  and  approved  the  proceeding  and  sentence  of  the  court.  Still,  in  a 
matter  so  deeply  affecting  my  reputation  and  official  honor,  I  am  naturally  desirous  of 
having  the  testimony  in  my  possession  strengthened  as  far  as  practicable,  and  hence  it  is 
that  I  trouble  you  with  this  note.  While  I  know  that  the  question  of  extending  to  Mrs. 
Surratt  the  clemency  sought  by  the  petition  was  considered  by  the  President  at  the  time 
mentioned,  I  have,  in  view  of  its  gravity,  been  always  satisfied  that  it  must  have  been 
considered  by  the  Cabinet  also;  but  from  the  confidential  character  of  Cabinet  delibera 
tions  I  have  thus  far  been  denied  access  to  this  source  of  information."  He  then 
proceeds  to  inquire  whether  or  not  he  (Judge  Bingham)  had  any  conversation  with 
Secretary  Seward  or  Mr.  Stanton  in  reference  to  this  petition,  and  if  so  to  please  give 
him  as  nearly  as  he  (Judge  Bingham)  could,  all  that  Secretary  Seward  or  Mr.  Stanton 
had  said  upon  the  subject. 

Judge  Bingham  replied  under  date  of  February  17,  1873,  anc^  among  other  things 
said :  — 

"  Before  the  President  had  acted  upon  the  case,  I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  call  the 
•attention  of  Secretary  Stanton  to  the  petition  for  the  commutation  of  sentence  upon  Mrs. 
.Surratt,  and  did  call  his  attention  to  it,  before  the  final  decision  of  the  President. 
After  the  execution,  the  statement  which  you  refer  to  was  made  that  President  Johnson 
had  not  seen  the  petition  for  the  commutation  of  the  death  sentence  upon  Mrs.  Surratt. 
I  afterwards  called  at  your  office,  and,  without  notice  to  you  of  my  purpose,  asked  for 
the  record  of  the  case  of  the  assassins;  it  was  opened  and  shown  me,  and  there  was 
then  attached  to  it  the  petition,  copied  and  signed  as  hereinbefore  stated.  Soon  there 
after  I  called  upon  Secretaries  Stanton  and  Seward  and  asked  if  this  petition  had  been 
presented  to  the  President  before  the  death  sentence  was  by  him  approved,  and  was 
answered  by  each  of  those  gentlemen  that  the  petition  was  presented  to  the  President, 
and  was  duly  considered  by  him  and  his  advisers  before  the  death  sentence  upon  Mrs. 
Surratt  was  approved,  and  that  the  President  and  Cabinet,  upon  such  consideration, 
were  a  unit  in  denying  the  prayer  of  the  petition;  Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Seward  stating" 
that  they  were  present. 

"  Having  ascertained  the  fact  as  stated,  I  then  desired  to  make  the  same  public,  and 
so  expressed  myself  to  Mr.  Stanton,  who  advised  me  not  to  do  so,  but  to  rely  upon  the 
final  judgement  of  the  people." 

In  replying  to  this  letter,  Judge  Holt  very  justly  remarks:  "  It  would  have  been  very 
fortunate  for  me  indeed  could  I  have  had  this  testimony  in  my  possession  years  ago. 
Mr.  Stanton's  advice  to  you  was,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  most 
extraordinary. 

"The  asking  you  'to  rely  upon  the  final  judgment  of  the  people,'  and  at  the  same 
time  withholding  from  them  the  proof  on  which  the  judgment  —  to  be  just  —  must  be 
formed,  was  a  sad,  sad  mockery." 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT.  409 

The  next  is  a  letter  horn  ex-Attorney  General  Speed,  dated  March  30,  1873,  in  which 
!he  says:  "After  the  finding  of  the  military  commission  that  tried  the  assassins  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  before  their  execution,  I  saw  the  record  of  the  case  in  the  President's 
office,  and  attached  to  it  was  a  paper,  signed  by  some  of  the  members  of  the  commission, 
recommending  that  the  sentence  against  Mrs.  Surratt  be  commuted  to  imprisonment  for 
-life;  and  according  to  my  memory,  the  recommendation  was  made  because  of  her  sex. 

"  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  speak  of  what  was  said  at  Cabinet  meetings.  In  this  I 
know  I  differ  from  other  gentlemen,  but  feel  constrained  to  follow  my  own  sense  of 
propriety." 

So  that  it  is  most  clear  from  this  statement  of  Attorney  General  Speed,  unless  he, 
without  interest  or  motive,  stated  a  most  deliberate  falsehood,  that  Judge  Holt  did  not 
•"  withhold  "  or  "  suppress  "  the  recommendation  to  mercy,  but  carried  it  with  the  record 
and  "  attached  to  it"  as  Mr.  Speed  says,  and  delivered  it  in  the  President's  office. 
•Certainly  every  intelligent  mind  will  concede  that  this  testimony  of  Mr.  Speed  utterly 
•disposes  of  the  charge  of  Andrew  Johnson  that  Judge  Holt  "suppressed"  or  "with 
held"  this  recommendation  to  mercy.  If  Mr.  Johnson  did  not  see  it  or  read  it  when 
in  his  office,  that  was  his  neglect,  his  failure  to  perform  a  solemn  official  duty.  But  on 
this  question  of  his  having  read  and  considered  it,  how  stands  the  evidence?  Judge 
Holt  states  that  he  drew  his  attention  to  it,  and  that  Mr.  Johnson  read  it  in  his  presence. 
Judge  Bingham  says  both  Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Seward  stated  to  him  that  this  petition 
had  been  presented  to  the  President  and  was  duly  considered  by  him  and  his  advisers 
before  the  death  sentence  upon  Mrs.  Surratt  was  approved.  Under  date  of  May  27, 
1873,  James  Harlan,  a  former  member  of  Mr.  Johnson's  Cabinet,  addressed  a  letter  to 
Judge  Holt,  in  which  he  said:  "After  the  sentence  and  before  the  execution  of  Mrs. 
Surratt,  I  remember  distinctly  the  discussion  of  the  question  of  the  commutation  of  the 
sentence  of  death  pronounced  on  her  by  the  Court  to  imprisonment  for  life  had  by 
members  of  the  Cabinet  in  presence  of  President  Johnson.  I  can  not  state  positively 
whether  this  occurred  at  a  regular  or  a  called  meeting,  or  whether  it  was  at  an 
accidental  meeting  of  several  members,  each  calling  on  the  President  in  relation  to  the 
business  of  his  own  department.  The  impression  on  my  mind  is,  that  the  only  discus 
sion  of  the  subject  by  members  of  the  Cabinet,  which  I  ever  heard,  occurred  in  the  last- 
named  mode,  there  being  not  more  than  three  or  four  members  present — Mr.  Seward, 
Mr.  Stanton,  and  myself,  and  probably  Attorney  General  Speed  and  others  —  but  I 
distinctly  remember  only  the  first  two.  When  I  entered  the  room,  one  of  these  was 
addressing  the  President  in  an  earnest  conversation  on  the  question  whether  the  sentence 
ought  to  be  modified  on  account  of  the  sex  of  the  condemned.  I  can  recite  the  precise 
thought,  if  not  the  very  words,  used  by  this  eminent  statesman,  as  they  were  impressed 
on  my  mind  with  great  force  at  the  time,  and  I  have  often  thought  of  them  since,  viz. : 
'  Surely  not,  Mr.  President,  for  if  the  death  penalty  should  be  commuted  in  so  grave  a 
•case  as  the  assassination  of  the  head  of  a  great  nation,  on  account  of  the  sex  of  the 
criminal,  it  would  amount  to  an  invitation  to  assassins  hereafter  to  employ  women  as  their 
instruments,  under  the  belief  that  if  arrested  and  condemned,  they  would  be  punished 
less  severely  than  men.  An  act  of  executive  clemency  on  such  a  plea  would  be  disap 
proved  by  the  government  of  every  civilized  nation  on  earth.'  " 

Judge  Harlan  adds  that  he  made  inquiry  at  the  time,  and  "was  told  that  the  whole 
•case  had  been  carefully  examined  by  the  Attorney  General  and  the  Secretary  of  War; 
and  that  the  only  question  raised  was  whether  the  punishment  shall  be  reduced  on 
account  of  the  sex  of  the  party  condemned.  I  do  not  remember  that  any  differences  of 
opinion  were  expressed  on  that  point." 


41 0  THE    CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 

This  is  indirect  but  very  conclusive  evidence  that  the  petition  was  attached  to  the 
record  submitted  to  the  President  and  examined  by  the  Attorney  General  and  Secretary 
of  War;  and  that  the  subject  of  the  mitigation  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  sentence  was  considered 
by  the  President  and  these  members  of  his  Cabinet,  because  in  no  part  of  the  record 
was  there  the  slightest  allusion  to  the  question  of  clemency  to  Mrs.  Surratt,  or  to  any  of 
the  other  convicted  persons,  except  in  the  petition  signed  by  the  five  members  of  the 
Court. 

The  next  is  a  letter  from  the  Rev.  J.  George  Butler,  pastor  of  St.  Paul's  Church, 
Washington.  Under  date  of  December  5,  1868,  in  describing  an  interview  he  had  with 
President  Johnson,  he  says:  "The  interview  occurred  during  a  social  call  upon  the 
family  of  the  President  in  the  evening,  a  few  hours  after  the  execution. 

"  I  had  been  summoned  by  the  Government,  I  then  being  a  hospital  chaplain,  to 
attend  upon  Atzerodt,  and  was  present  at  the  execution. 

"  Concerning  Mrs.  Surratt,  the  remarks  of  the  President,  by  reason  of  their  point  ana 
force,  impressed  themselves  upon  my  memory.  He  said,  in  substance,  that  very  strong 
appeals  had  been  made  for  the  exercise  of  executive  clemency;  that  he  had  been 
importuned;  that  telegrams  and  threats  had  been  used;  but  he  could  not  be  moved, 
for,  in  his  own  significant  language,  Mrs.  Surratt  ''kept  the  nest  that  hatched tJie  eggs^ 

"The  President  further  stated  that  no  plea  had  been  urged  in  her  behalf,  save  the 
fact  that  she  was  a  woman,  and  his  interposition  upon  that  ground  would  license  female 
crime." 

This  harmonizes  entirely  with  the  "  thought  "  which  Secretary  Harlan  heard  uttered 
with  so  much  force  by  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  in  Mr.  Johnson's  presence —  either  Mr. 
Stanton  or  Mr.  Seward —  and  from  his  language,  "  this  eminent  statesman,  "  I  take  it 
to  have  been  Mr.  Seward. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Butler  adds:  "  I  feel  it  due  to  a  Christian  soldier  and  personal  friend 
(General  Eakin)  to  make  this  statement,  showing  clearly  that  at  the  time  of  the  execution 
the  President's  judgment  wholly  accorded  with  the  judgment  of  the  military  commission; 
and  that  no  appeals  could  then  change  his  purpose  to  make  '  treason  odious.'  " 

General  R.  D.  Mussey,  under  date  of  August  19,  1873,  writes  to  Judge  Holt: — 

"  In  a  few  days  after  the  assassination  I  was  detailed  for  duty  with  Mr.  Johnson  and 
acted  as  one  of  his  secretaries,  and  was  an  inmate  of  his  household  until  some  time  in 
the  fall  of  1865. 

"About  the  time  the  military  court  that  tried  Mrs.  Surratt  concluded  its  labors,  I 
was,  if  I  remember  aright,  for  some  days  the  only  person  acting  as  private  secretary  at 
the  White  House,  my  associate  being  absent  on  a  visit. 

"  On  the  Wednesday  previous  to  the  execution  (which  was  on  Friday,  July  7,  1865),  as 
I  was  sitting  at  my  desk  in  the  morning,  Mr.  Johnson  told  me  that  he  was  going  to  look 
over  the  findings  of  the  Court  with  Judge  Holt,  and  should  be  busy  and  could  see  no 
one.  I  replied,  "  Very  well,  sir,  I  will  see  that  you  are  not  interrupted,"  or  something  to 
that  effect,  and  continued  my  work.  I  think  it  was  two  or  three  hours  after  that  that 
Mr.  Johnson  came  out  of  the  room  where  he  had  been  with  you,  and  said  that  the  papers 
had  been  looked  over  and  a  decision  reached.  I  asked  what  it  was.  He  told  me,  ap 
proval  of  the  findings  and  sentence  of  the  Court;  and  he  then  gave  me  the  sentences  as 
near  as  he  remembered  them,  and  said  that  he  had  ordered  the  sentence  where  it  was 
death  to  be  carried  into  execution  on  the  Friday  following.  I  remember  looking  up 
from  my  desk  with  some  surprise  at  the  brevity  of  this  interval,  and  asking  him  whether 
the  time  wasn't  rather  short.  He  admitted  that  it  was,  but  said  that  they  had  had  ever 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND   JUDGE   HOLT.  411 

since  the  trial  began  for  '  preparation  ' ;  and  either  then  or  later  on  in  the  day  spoke  of 
his  design  in  making  the  time  short,  so  that  there  might  be  less  opportunity  for  criticism, 
remonstrance,  etc.  I  do  not  pretend  to  use  his  precise  language  as  to  this,  but  the  pur 
port  of  it  was  that  '  it  was  a  disagreeable  duty,  and  there  would  be  endeavors  to  get  him 
not  to  perform  it,  and  he  wished  to  avoid  them  as  much  as  possible.'  ...  I  am  very 
confident,  though  not  absolutely  assured,  that  it  was  at  this  interview  Mr.  Johnson  told 
me  that  the  Court  had  recommended  Mrs.  Surratt  to  mercy  on  the  ground  of  her  sex 
(and  age,  I  believe).  But  I  am  certain  he  did  so  inform  me  about  that  time;  and  that 
he  said  he  thought  the  grounds  urged  insufficient,  and  that  he  had  refused  to  interfere; 
that  if  she  was  guilty  at  all,  her  sex  did  not  make  her  any  the  less  guilty;  that  he,  about 
the  time  of  her  execution,  justified  it;  that  he  told  me  there  had  not  been  women  enough 
hanged  in  this  war.  " 

This  evidence  would  seem  to  establish  most  conclusively  that  the  "  petition  "  was 
not  only  attached  to  the  record,  and  delivered  by  Judge  Holt  at  the  President's  office  in 
the  Executive  Mansion,  but  that  he  read  the  same  and  afterward  considered  and  dis 
cussed  it  with  at  least  three  members  of  his  Cabinet;  and  intelligent  charity  can  reach 
no  further  than  to  say  that  President  Johnson,  when  he  charged  Judge  Holt  with  having 
withheld  this  recommendation  to  mercy  when  he  delivered  the  record  of  the  trial  at  the 
President's  Mansion,  made  a  cruel  and  untruthful  charge;  and  that  when  he  asserted  in 
1873  that  he  had  not  seen,  read,  or  heard  of  this  recommendation  to  mercy,  at  the  time 
he  approved  the  sentences  on  the  5th  day  of  July,  1865,  had  forgotten  the  facts  —  that 
his  "  forgettery  "  was  much  better  than  his  memory. 

One  of  the  main  points  in  President  Johnson's  response  to  this  evidence  was  that  in 
the  published  volume  of  the  record  of  the  trial  of  the  assassins,  prepared  by  Mr.  Ben. 
Pittmann,  of  Cincinnati,  under  my  official  supervision,  this  recommendation  to  mercy 
does  not  appear.  There  is  no  force  in  this.  The  petition  or  recommendation  to  mercy 
constituted  properly  no  part  of  the  official  record  of  the  trial.  Mr.  Pittmann,  who  had 
his  desk  and  place  in  my  office  at  the  War  Department,  was  one  of  the  official  stenog 
raphers  of  the  court,  and  had  special  charge  and  custody  of  the  record  from  day  to  day. 
The  other  reporters  sent  in  to  him  their  portions  of  the  testimony  as  they  were  written  up, 
and  thereafter  he  was  responsible  for  them.  My  recollection  is  also  that  as  the  testimony 
was  written  up  a  press  copy  was  made  of  it,  which  he  (Mr.  Pittmann)  took  with  him  to 
Cincinnati,  and  used,  after  he  had  received  permission  from  the  War  Department  to 
publish. 

The  commission  met  with  closed  doors  at  10  A.  M.  on  the  2gch  of  June  to  consider 
its  findings,  and  continued  and  concluded  its  labors  with  closed  doors  on  the  3Oth. 
From  these  meetings  all  stenographic  reporters  were  excluded.  The  findings  and  sen 
tences,  when  finally  made  and  recorded,  were  handed  to  me  to  be  attached  to  the  record, 
or  to  go  with  the  record  to  the  Judge  Advocate  General's  office,  as  was  then  the  course 
of  procedure.  By  the  oath  administered,  all  the  members  of  the  commission,  as  well  as 
the  Judge  Advocates,  were  bound  not  to  reveal  those  findings  and  sentences.  I  there 
fore  retained  them  in  my  possession,  instead  of  passing  them  on  to  the  stenographers. 
When  the  recommendation  to  mercy  was  drawn,  and  signed  by  five  members  of  the 
commission,  that  was  also  handed  to  me  to  accompany  the  findings. 

Mr.  Pittmann  never  saw,  I  presume,  either  the  original  findings  or  the  recommendation' 
to  mercy,  and  the  first  knowledge  he  had  of  the  former  doubtless  was  after  they  were 
promulgated  by  the  Adjutant  General  on  the  5th  day  of  July.  This  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  the  Adjutant  General,  in  promulgating  the  proceedings,  took  Mrs.  Surratt's 


412 


THE    CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 


name  from  the  position  it  occupies  in  the  records,  and  placed  it  next  that  of  Payne, 
evidently  for  the  purpose  of  grouping  together  the  four  persons  condemned  to  death. 
Mr.  Pittmann  gives  the  findings  and  sentence  in  the  order  promulgated  by  the  Adjutant 
General  —  that  is  to  say,  he  places  the  findings  and  sentence  in  Mrs.  Surratt's  case  next 
after  that  of  Lewis  Payne;  while  the  Court,  in  making  up  its  findings,  followed  the  order 
named  in  the  charge  and  specifications,  where  Mrs.  Surratt's  name  follows  that  of  Sam 
uel  Arnold. 

When  I  reached  my  office  at  the  War  Department  on  the  3Oth  —  possibly  on  the 
morning  of  the  1st  of  July  —  I  attached  the  petition  or  recommendation  to  mercy  of  Mrs. 
Surratt  to  the  findings  and  sentence,  and  at  the  end  of  them,  and  then  directed  some  one 

—  probably  Mr.  Pittmann  —  to  carry  the  record  of  the  evidence  to   the  Judge  Advocate- 
General's  office.    I  carried  the  findings  and  sentences  and  the  petition  or  recommendation 
and  delivered  them  to  the  Judge  Advocate  General  in  person  or  to  the  clerk  in  charge 
of  court-martial  records.     Before  leaving  the  War  Department  I  may  have  attached  these 
findings  and  sentences  and  petition  to  the  last  few  days  of  testimony,  and  carried  that  to 
the  Judge  Advocate  General's  office.     I  never  saw  the  record  again  until  many  years  after 

—  I  think  in  1873  or  1874. 

I  left  Washington  several  days  before,  and  was  not  there  on  the  day  of  the  execution. 
My  recollection  is,  that  I  left  there  either  on  the  evening  of  the  5th  or  on  the  morning  of 
the  6th  of  July.  On  the  5th  day  of  July,  when  Judge  Holt  had  his  conference  with 
President  Johnson  over  the  record  and  proceedings  of  the  military  commission,  when  the 
President  considered  and  passed  upon  the  findings  and  sentences  of  the  accused  persons, 
after  that  interview  Judge  Holt  came  directly  to  Mr.  Stanton's  office  in  the  War  Depart 
ment.  I  happened  to  be  with  Mr.  Stanton  as  Judge  Holt  came  in.  After  greetings, 
the  latter  remarked,  "  I  have  just  come  from  a  conference  with  the  President  over  the 
proceedings  of  the  military  commission.  "  "  Well,  "  said  Mr.  Stanton,  "  what  has  he 
done?"  "  He  has  approved  the  findings  and  sentence  of  the  Court,"  replied  Judge  Holt. 

"  What  did  he  say  about  the  recommendation  to  mercy  of  Mrs.  Surratt?  "  next  in 
quired  Mr.  Stanton.  "  He  said,  "  answered  Judge  Holt,  "  that  she  must  be  punished 
with  the  rest;  that  no  reasons  were  given  for  his  interposition  by  those  asking  for  clem 
ency,  in  her  case,  except  age  and  sex.  He  said  her  sex  furnished  no  good  ground  for 
his  interfering;  that  women  and  men  should  learn  that  if  women  committed  crimes  they 
would  be  punished;  that  if  they  entered  into  conspiracies  to  assassinate,  they  must  suffer 
the  penalty;  that  were  this  not  so,  hereafter  conspirators  and  assassins  would  use  women 
as  their  instruments;  it  would  be  mercy  to  womankind  to  let  Mrs.  Surratt  surfer  the  pen 
alty  of  her  crime.  "  After  some  futher  conversation,  and  after  making  known  to  Mr. 
Stanton  that  the  President  had  fixed  Friday,  the  7th,  as  the  day  of  execution,  Judge 
Holt  left.  In  giving  the  above  conversation  I  cannot  say  that  I  have  given  the  exact 
words;  but  the  substance  of  what  Judge  Holt  said  I  know  I  have  given.  It  is  indelibly 
impressed  upon  my  memory.  This  conversation,  while  it  does  not  constitute  legal  evi 
dence  of  the  fact  of  President  Johnson's  consideration  of  the  recommendation  to  mercy, 
has  always  been  a  circumstance  strong  and  convincing  to  my  mind  that  President  John 
son's  charge  was  totally  false.  It  showed  that  Mr.  Stanton  had  knowledge  of  the  recom 
mendation  —  probably  had  examined  the  record  in  the  four  or  five  days  which  had  inter 
vened  since  the  trial.  As  Secretary  of  War  he  was  at  that  time  daily  —  almost  hourly  • —  in 
•consultation  with  the  President  over  the  disbandment  of  the  military  forces;  the  occupation 
by  the  army  of  the  rebel  States;  the  powers  and  duties  of  officers  there,  and  the  in 
numerable  questions  semi-military  in  character  arising  out  of  the  chaotic  political  and 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT-  413 

social  condition  of  the  rebel  States;  and  they  could  hardly  have  come  together  at  that  time 
without  the  question  of  the  conviction  and  execution  of  the  assassins  coming  up.  The 
circumstances  of  the  assassination,  the  plot  or  conspiracy  to  assassinate  President  Lincoln 
and  his  Cabinet,  the  Vice  President  himself,  and  General  Grant;  who  were  concerned 
in  it;  the  evidence  submitted  to  the  Court,  the  weight  given  to  it  by  the  Court,  and  the 
conclusion  reached  by  the  Court,  were  matters  in  which  the  President  and  the  Secretary 
of  War  could  not  fail  to  take,  and,  as  is  well  known,  did  take  the  deepest  possible  interest. 
It  is  past  human  credulity  to  believe  that  they  would  thus  come  together  during  the  time 
intervening  between  the  conclusion  of  the  trial  on  the  3Oth  day  of  June  and  the  execution 
of  the  sentences  on  the  yth  of  July,  and  the  result  of  the  trial,  together  with  the  recom 
mendation  to  mercy,  not  be  discussed  between  them.  It  is  inconceivable  to  me  that 
Judge  Holt,  even  if  he  were  so  malicious  and  murderous  in  purpose,  could  be  so  reck 
less  and  foolish  in  execution  of  such  purpose  as  to  withhold  from  and  try  to  conceal  from 
President  Johnson  this  recommendation  to  mercy,  when  the  fact  of  its  existence  was 
known  to  Mr.  Stanton,  and  was  so  certain  to  be  made  known  to  the  President  by  him, 
and  its  contents  discussed  between  them. 

The  historian  in  passing  judgment  upon  this  event,  and  in  weighing  evidence  as  to 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  this  charge  made  by  President  Johnson,  will  take  into  considera 
tion  the  mental  characteristics  and  moral  fibre  of  the  two  men,  and  what  adequate 
motive  there  was  actuating  one  occupying  the  exalted  position  of  President  Johnson  to 
make  the  charge,  or  of  Judge  Holt  to  commit  so  wicked  and  cruel  a  wrong. 

Andrew  Johnson's  mental  make-up  is  well  known  to  the  officers  of  the  old  Union 
army,  and  to  the  American  people.  His  life,  his  acts,  and  his  speeches  are  still  remem 
bered,  and  the  public  judgment  formed  and  registered.  I  do  not  propose  here  to-night 
to  take  your  time  in  going  into  a  statement  or  discussion  of  this  subject.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  he  was  endowed  by  nature  with  more  than  ordinary  intellectual  abilities, 
and  that  he  had  risen  from  the  lowest  walks  of  life  by  the  vigor  ot  his  own  will,  energy, 
and  mental  power,  through  many  intermediate  places  of  honor  and  trust,  to  the  second 
place  in  the  gift  of  the  American  people  —  theVice-Presidency  of  the  United  States. 
He  was  a  man  of  controlling  prejudices  and  strong  personality.  He  was  ambitious, 
bold,  hot-tempered,  obstinate,  and  in  the  achievement  of  the  ends  and  aims  he 
sought  —  right  ends  and  aims  he  may  have  thought  them  —  he  was  unscrupulous  in  the 
means  he  used.  This  is  well  illustrated  in  the  instance  given  by  General  Sheridan  in 
his  memoirs  of  President  Johnson's  treatment  of  him  while  he  was  in  command  of  New 
Orleans  in  1866. 

You  will  recall  the  intense  feeling  aroused  throughout  the  country  by  the  wanton  and 
bloody  massacre  of  the  convention  assembled  at  New  Orleans,  on  the  3Oth  of  July,  that 
year,  to  remodel  the  constitution  of  that  State.  General  Sheridan  had  been  absent 
several  days  in  Texas,  and  was  returning,  when  the  riot  occurred.  He  reached  New 
Orleans  August  ist,  made  an  investigation,  and  on  the  same  day  sent  the  following 
telegraphic  report  to  General  Grant :  — 

"  You  are  doubtless  aware  of  the  serious  riot  which  occurred  in  this  city  on  the  3Oth. 
Apolitical  body  styling  themselves  the  'Convention  of  1864,'  met  on  the  3<Dth  for,  as  it 
alleged,  the  purpose  of  remodeling  the  present  constitution  of  the  State.  The  leaders 
were  political  agitators  and  revolutionary  men,  and  the  action  of  the  convention  was 
liable  to  produce  breaches  of  the  public  peace.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  arrest  the 
head  men  if  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  were  calculated  to  disturb  the  tranquility 
of  the  department,  but  I  had  no  cause  for  action  until  they  committed  some  overt  act* 


41 4  THE    CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 

In  the  meantime  official  duty  called  me  to  Texas,  and  the  mayor  of  the  city,  during  my 
absence,  suppressed  the  convention  by  the  use  of  the  police  force,  and  in  so  doing 
attacked  the  members  of  the  convention  and  a  party  of  two  hundred  negroes  with  fire 
arms,  clubs,  and  knives,  in  a  manner  so  unnecessary  and  atrocious  as  to  compel  me  to 
say  that  it  was  murder.  About  forty  whites  and  blacks  were  thus  killed,  and  about  one 
hundred  and  sixty  wounded.  Everything  is  now  quiet,  but  I  deem  it  best  to  maintain 
a  military  supremacy  in  the  city  for  a  few  days,  until  the  affair  is  fully  investigated.  I 
believe  the  sentiment  of  the  general  community  is  great  regret  at  this  unnecessary 
cruelty,  and  that  the  police  could  have  made  any  arrest  they  saw  fit  without  sacrificing 
lives.  "P.  H.  SHERIDAN, 

"  Major  General  commanding,** 

General  Sheridan  adds:  "  On  receiving  the  telegram,  General  Grant  immediately 
submitted  it  to  the  President.  Much  clamor  being  made  at  the  North  for  the  publica 
tion  of  the  despatch,  President  Johnson  pretended  to  give  it  to  the  newspapers.  It 
appeared  in  the  issues  of  August  4th,  but  with  this  paragraph  omitted,  viz. :  — 

"  '  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  arrest  the  head  men,  if  the  proceedings  were  calcu 
lated  to  disturb  the  tranquilty  of  the  department,  but  I  had  no  cause  for  action  until 
they  committed  some  overt  act.  In  the  meantime  official  duty  called  me  to  Texas,  and 
the  mayor  of  the  city,  during  my  absence,  suppressed  the  convention  by  the  use  of  the 
police  force,  and  in  so  doing  attacked  the  members  of  the  convention  and  a  party  of  two 
hundred  negroes  with  fire-arms,  clubs,  and  knives,  in  a  manner  so  unnecessary  and 
atrocious  as  to  compel  me  to  say  it  was  murder.'  ' 

General  Sheridan  adds:  "Against  this  garbling  of  my  report,  done  by  the  Presi 
dent's  own  order,  I  strongly  demurred,  and  this  emphatic  protest  marks  the  beginning 
of  Mr.  Johnson's  well-known  personal  hostility  toward  me." 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  omission  of  this  portion  of  the  despatch  —  this  "gar 
bling,"  done  by  President  Johnson'?  own  order  —  changes  its  whole  tenor  and  meaning; 
made  General  Sheridan  say  exactly  contrary  to  what  he  did  in  fact  say.  Omitting  the 
part  struck  out,  and  connecting  the  two  sentences  that  come  together,  the  President 
made  the  despatch  read:  "The  leaders  were  political  agitators  and  revolutionary  men, 
and  the  action  of  the  convention  was  liable  to  produce  breaches  of  the  public  peace. 
About  forty  whites  and  blacks  were  thus  killed,  and  about  one  hundred  and  sixty 
wounded."  * 

Observe  —  this  makes  General  Sheridan  say  that  the  action  of  the  convention  was 
liable  to  produce  breaches  of  the  public  peace,  and  thus, — in  this  wise,  —  about  forty 
whites  and  blacks  were  killed  and  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  wounded.  General 
Sheridan  said  nothing  of  the  kind  —  nothing  in  the  whole  despatch  had  any  such  impli 
cation  or  meaning.  What  he  did  say  was  that  the  mayor  of  the  city  "suppressed  the 
convention  by  the  use  of  the  police  force,  and  in  so  doing  attacked  the  members  of  the 
convention  and  a  party  of  two  hundred  negroes  with  fire-arms,  clubs,  and  knives,  in  a 
manner  so  unnecessary  and  atrocious  as  to  compel  me  to  say  that  it  was  murder  ";  and 
"  thus  "  by  this  means,  by  this  mayor  and  his  police,  about  forty  whites  and  blacks 
were  killed  and  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  wounded. 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  a  man  who  could  do  this  wrong  to  General  Sheridan,  — 
could  mutilate  and  corrupt  a  despatch  so  as  to  cause  him  to  make  a  false  report  about  a 
people  over  whom  he  was  placed  in  government;  to  cause  him  to  state  falsely  the  facts 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  ND   JUDGE  HOLT.  415 

and  circumstances  about  an  event  in  which  forty  persons  had  lost  their  lives,  and  one 
hundred  and  sixty  had  been  grievously  wounded,  —  would  hesitate  to  state  a  falsehood 
about  Judge  Holt?  Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  a  man  who  could  do  this,  and  then  try 
to  mislead  and  deceive  the  people  of  the  United  States  as  to  this  tragic  event,  about 
which  they  were  clamoring  to  know  the  truth,  perpetrating  a  lie  upon  them  by  mutilating 
and  corrupting  a  despatch  and  promulgating  it  as  the  true  one,  would  hesitate  to  deceive 
the  people  about  the  fact  as  to  whether  he  did  or  did  not  see  the  recommendation  to 
mercy  of  Mrs.  Surratt?  Is  it  not  fair  to  say  that  he  was  of  such  mental  structure  and 
moral  fibre  as  to  do  this  wrong? 

And  now  the  motive :  — 

It  is  known  of  all  men  that  Andrew  Johnson  had  only  fairly  settled  himself  in  the 
presidential  chair  of  the  great  Lincoln,  before  he  began  to  dream,  to  scheme,  and  to 
intrigue  for  an  election  by  the  people  to  that  office. 

The  presidential  bee  was  buzzing  under  the  accidental  presidential  hat.  The  Southern 
leaders,  clever  diplomats  and  long-headed  politicans  as  they  are,  soon  took  the  measure 
of  the  man,  and  began  to  consider  how  best  they  could  use  him,  and  his  ambition  for  their 
own  purposes.  It  was  noticed  that  Andrew  Johnson  had  not  been  many  months  in  the 
White  House  before  there  was  a  decided  change  in  the  style  and  type  of  visitors  passing 
in  and  out  under  the  great  white  portico.  The  men  of  the  North, — the  old  "Union 
Republican  group  "  of  the  House  and  Senate  that  were  daily  visitors  there  in  the  days  of 
Lincoln,  began  to  find  the  atmosphere  of  the  White  House  less  kind  and  congenial;  there 
was  a  lack  of  warmth  in  the  welcome,  and  a  constraint  in  talk  and  exchange  of  ideas, 
progressing  gradually  to  actual  antagonism  over  the  questions  of  amnesty,  reconstruc 
tion,  and  constitutional  guarantees  to  the  freedmen.  Then  the  Northern  men  dropped 
away;  seemed  not  to  go  there  any  more.  Men  from  the  South  who  but  lately  had  borne 
arms  against  the  government,  and  who  had  not  yet  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance,  were 
found  plentiful  about  the  White  House,  and  apparently  basking  in  the  sunshine  of  presi 
dential  favor,  as  in  the  rays  of  a  southern  sun.  It  became  the  reign  of  the  unreconstructed 
and  unreconciled.  Somebody  had  whispered  loud  enough  for  Mr.  Johnson  to  hear,  — 
perhaps  the  bee  buzzed  it,  — that  if  the  Southern  States  could  be  reconstructed  previous  to 
the  presidential  convention  of  1868,  and  he  (President  Johnson)  should  be  found  friendly 
and  faithful  to  the  South  in  that  work,  there  were  fifteen  Southern  States  whose  electoral 
votes  might  be  found  solid  for  him  as  the  Democratic  nominee,  and  he  would  only  need 
the  votes  of  two  or  three  Northern  States  in  addition  to  carry  off  the  nomination.  You 
know  how  the  poison  took — how  from  the  most  radical  of  Union  Republicans  he  be 
came  the  most  extreme  —  the  leader  —  of  the  "  strictest  sect  "  of  the  Democrats;  how  the 
words  "  treason  should  be  made  odious,"  "  traitors  should  take  back  seats,"  "  a  few  trai 
tors  should  be  hung,"  with  which  his  mouth  was  filled  when  elected,  and  were  still  sound 
ing  in  the  air  when  he  sat  down  in  Lincoln's  vacant  chair,  had  hardly  died  away  before 
he  had  turned  against  and  upon  all  those  who  had  upheld  the  Union  cause  —  all  his  old 
Union  friends;  how  he  fought  the  Congress  with  a  bitterness  and  a  boldness  unparalleled 
in  history.  He  took  issue  with  it  on  every  measure  by  which  the  Congress  sought  to  fix 
in  statute  and  in  the  fundamental  law  what  the  sword  had  achieved,  what  war  had 
enacted.  Thus  he  stood. 

And  now  turning  to  Mrs.  Surratt  and  her  case.  Over  her  execution  a  great  clamor 
was  raised  throughout  the  country,  not  only  by  those  who  were  lately  in  rebellion,  and 
those  in  the  North  who  were  in  sympathy  with  that  rebellion,  but  almost  universally 
by  the  Roman  Catholics  of  the  country,  she  being  a  member  of  that  Church,  they 


41 6  THE    CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 

believing  her  innocent  and  a  martyr.  Mr.  Johnson  heard  this  clamor,  and  "his 
startled  ambition  grew  sore  afraid."  He  bethought  him  of  some  means  to  turn  this 
wrath  away  from  himself.  The  press  kept  referring  to  the  fact  that  a  recommendation 
to  mercy  had  been  signed  by  a  majority  of  the  Court ;  and  his  new  friends  and  allies 
were  calling  upon  him  with  a  loud  voice  to  know  why  he  had  not  heeded  the  appeal1 
for  mercy,  and  saved  this  hapless  woman.  His  fears  whispered  that  the  storm  might 
grow  so  fierce  and  strong  'as  to  sweep  away  his  carefully  constructed  political  fabric. 
How  could  he  turn  away  this  wrath  and  clamor?  How  turn  the  fury  of  the  storm? 
Were  here  not  motive  and  interest  enough?  He  doubtless  remembered  that,  when  he 
examined  the  record,  he  and  Judge  Holt  had  been  alone.  How  easy  to  shift  the  blame, 
to  turn  the  storm  of  wrath  and  execration  upon  another  head  by  having  it  circulated 
that  the  recommendation  had  been  suppressed  by  Judge  Holt,  and  that  he  had  never 
seen  nor  heard  of  it  up  to  the  time  of  the  execution  !  Here  was  a  sufficient  motive  — 
the  motive  of  ambition  —  the  motive  which,  as  we  have  seen,  changed  the  whole  nature 
of  the  man, — changed  his  political  thought  and  attitude  —  spoiled  the  purpose  of  his 
life. 

Of  Judge  Holt's  life  little  need  be  said.  Born  and  reared  in  Kentucky,  of  the  best 
blood  of  the  State,  he  had  achieved  fame  and  stood  in  the  front  rank  with  the  great 
lawyers  and  orators  of  that  State  before  the  rebellion  began,  and  before  he  was  called  to 
the  Cabinet  of  James  Buchanan,  first,  as  Postmaster-General,  and  afterward  as  Secre 
tary  of  War,  to  fill  the  place  made  vacant  by  the  retirement  of  the  traitor  John  B. 
Floyd.  Judge  Holt  was  a  man  of  collegiate  education,  a  student  and  a  scholar  of  wide 
and  varied  reading,  and  a  rhetorician  and  logician  second  to  few  men  in  the  country.. 
Of  the  next  generation  after  Henry  Clay,  he  was  of  the  time  and  type  in  intellectual 
grasp  and  power  of  the  Marshalls,  the  Breckinridges,  and  the  Crittendens  of  that  State. 
He  breathed  in  the  spirit  of  loyalty,  patriotism,  and  love  of  the  Union  of  Clay,  and 
never  doubted,  never  swerved  in  giving  all  his  powers  —  in  dedicating  his  life  to  the 
work  of  saving  the  Union.  It  is  related  by  the  historian  that  at  one  of  the  Cabinet 
meetings  of  President  Buchanan,  when  several  of  the  Southern  secretaries  were  still 
occupying  their  places  and  were  boldly  demanding  that  the  forts  at  Charlestown  should 
be  evacuated,  and  Mr.  Buchanan  was  too  weak  to  take  a  position  against  them,  Mr. 
Stanton,  who  had  been  called  to  fill  the  office  of  Attorney  General,  sprang  to  his  feet 
and  said,  "  Mr.  President,  it  is  my  duty,  as  your  legal  adviser,  to  say  that  you  have  no 
right  to  give  up  the  property  of  the  government,  or  abandon  the  soldiers  of  the  United 
States  to  its  enemies,  and  the  course  proposed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  if  fol 
lowed,  is  treason,  and  will  involve  you  and  all  concerned  in  treason!  "  For  the  first 
time  in  this  Cabinet  treason  had  been  called  by  its  true  name.  Floyd  and  Thompson, 
who  had  had  everything  their  own  way,  sprang  fiercely  to  their  feet,  while  Mr. 'Holt  sprang 
to  Mr.  Stanton's  side,  indorsing  his  utterances,  and  ready  to  uphold  him  in  any  struggle. 
Mr.  Buchanan  begged  that  there  would  be  no  violence,  and  for  the  gentlemen  to  resume 
their  seats.  Thus  bolstered  by  Mr.  Stanton  and  Judge  Holt,  the  President  determined 
not  to  withdraw  Major  Anderson.  Soon  after  this  meeting,  Floyd  resigned,  and  Judge 
Holt  was  appointed  Secretary  of  War  in  his  place. 

Save  this  charge  of  Andrew  Johnson,  no  stain  or  blot,  nor  the  least  spot  or  soilure, 
has  ever  rested  on  the  fair  name  and  fame  of  Joseph  Holt.  For  the  last  year  or  two 
of  the  war  I  was  brought  in  close  official  and  personal  relations  with  him.  I  learned  to 
know  him  well.  He  was  most  refined  and  sensitive  in  his  nature,  gentle  and  kindly  in 
his  intercourse,  and  in  all  his  relations  with  those  about  him,  pure  in  his  private  life,. 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND   JUDGE   HOLT.  417 

exalted  in  his  ideas  and  ideals,  dignified,  and  courtly  in  his  bearing,  yet  always  thought 
ful,  considerate,  and  courteous.  He  had  traveled  much,  read  much,  and  held  as  his 
friends,  strongly  attached  to  him,  the  best  men  of  the  land.  I  can  now  as  little  associate 
him  in  my  mind  with  the  commission  of  a  dishonorable  action  as  any  man  I  have  ever 
known. 

One  of  the  interesting  episodes  connected  with  this  charge  against  Judge  Holt  is  his. 
appeal  to  Mr.  Speed,  Mr.  Lincoln's  Attorney  General,  to  "speak  out"  and  state  the 
fact  whether  or  not  the  recommendation  to  mercy  was  before  President  Johnson  and  his. 
Cabinet,  and  considered  by  them.  The  correspondence  between  Judge  Holt  and  Mr. 
Speed  is  published  in  the  North  American  Review  for  July,  1888.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  Mr.  Speed,  in  his  letter  to  Judge  Holt  of  March  30,  1873,  had  said:  — 

"After  the  finding  of  the  military  commission  that  tried  the  assassins  of  Mr.  Lincolnf 
and  before  their  execution,  I  saw  the  record  of  the  case  in  the  President's  office,  and 
attached  to  it  was  a  paper,  signed  by  some  of  the  members  of  the  commission,  recom 
mending  that  the  sentence  against  Mrs.  Surratt  be  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life; 
and  according  to  my  memory  the  recommendation  was  made  because  of  her  sex." 

As  I  have  heretofore  said,  this  settled,  so  far  as  the  testimony  of  James  Speed  could 
settle  it,  that  the  charge  of  Andrew  Johnson  that  Judge  Holt  had  withheld  the 
recommendation  to  mercy  was  false.  It  settled  the  fact  that  previous  to  the  execution 
the  recommendation  to  mercy  was  in  the  President's  office,  and  was  attached  to  the 
record.  But  in  this  letter  Mr.  Speed  added:  "I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  speak  of  what 
was  said  at  Cabinet  meetings.  In  this  case  I  know  I  differ  from  other  gentlemen,  but 
feel  constrained  to  follow  my  own  sense  of  propriety." 

Judge  Holt  had  learned,  through  the  statements  of  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Stanton  to 
Judge  Bingham,  that  the  recommendation  to  mercy  had  been  presented  to  the  President, 
and  had  been  considered  by  him  and  members  of  the  Cabinet  before  the  execution.  But 
when  this  information  came  to  him,  both  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Stanton  were  dead,  and 
the  statement  of  Judge  Bingham  of  what  they  told  him  was  secondary  evidence;  and 
Judge  Holt  was  anxious,  therefore,  to  get  the  direct  evidence  of  Mr.  Speed  that  his 
recommendation  was,  to  his  personal  knowledge,  before  Mr.  Johnson  and  his  Cabinet, 
and  considered  by  them.  His  appeals  to  Mr.  Speed  are  pathetic  in  the  earnestness  and 
depth  of  feeling  they  reveal.  What  could  be  more  profoundly  sorrowful  or  touching 
than  this,  in  his  letter  of  April  18,  1883 :  "  Allow  me  to  add  that  we  are  now,  each  of  us, 
far  advanced  in  years,  so  that  whatever  is  to  be  done  for  my  relief  should  be  done  quickly. 
While,  however,  it  is  sadly  apparent  that  I  can  remain  here  but  a  little  while  longer, 
I  have  not  been  able  to  bring  myself  to  the  belief  that  you  will  suffer  the  closing  hours 
of  my  life  to  be  darkened  by  a  consciousness  that  this  cloud,  or  even  a  shred  of  it,  is 
still  hanging  over  me  —  a  cloud  which  can  be  dissipated  at  once  and  forever  by  a  single 
word  spoken  by  yourself  in  defense  of  the  truth  and  in  rebuke  of  a  calumny,  the  merci 
less  cruelty  of  which  none  can  better  understand  than  yourself.  I  make  this  final  appeal 
to  your  honor  as  a  man  to  do  me  the  simple  justice,  which,  under  the  same  circum 
stances,  I  would  render  to  you  at  once  and  joyfully." 

But  Mr.  Speed  would  not  speak  —  finally  saying,  in  his  letter  of  October  25,  1883, 
"After  very  mature  and  deliberate  consideration,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I 
cannot  say  more  than  I  have."  Neither  would  he  enter  into  consideration  or  discussion 
of  his  determination  not  "to  speak  of  what  was  said  at  Cabinet  meetings."  It  seems 
to  me  that  Judge  Holt  was  right  and  Mr.  Speed  was  wrong  in  their  relative  positions 
upon  this  question.  In  his  letter  of  April  18,  1883,  addressed  to  Mr.  Speed,  to  which 


41  8  THE    CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 

I  have  referred,  Judge  Holt  forcibly  presents  his  view:  "You  were  a  member  of  his 
(President  Johnson's)  Cabinet,  and  I  have  the  strongest  reasons  for  believing  that  this 
atrocious  accusation  is  known  to  you  to  have  been  false  in  its  every  intendment.  It 
originated  with  President  Johnson,  and  for  years  was  industriously  circulated  by  his 
unscrupulous  abettors,  though  he  did  not  dare  make  open  proclamation  of  it  until  he 
felt  assured,  through  your  letter  of  the  3Oth  of  March,  1873,  that  no  damaging 
-disclosures  were  to  be  apprehended  from  yourself.  .  .  .  The  question  whether  a 
President  of  the  United  States,  as  a  craven  refuge  from  accountability  for  official  action, 
•did  seek  to  blacken  the  reputation  of  a  subordinate  officer  holding  a  confidential  inter 
view  with  him,  is  in  no  just  sense  a  private  question  ;  it  is  essentially  a  public  one,  which 
concerns  the  whole  country,  and  one  of  which  the  country  may  well  expect  to  speak, 
seeing  that  you  were  a  number  of  that  President's  Cabinet,  at  the  time  of  this  disgrace 
ful  transaction.  Your  unwillingness  thus  to  speak  of  it  in  1873,  seemed  to  have  arisen 
from  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  a  rule  which  once  prevailed  with  regard  to  the 
inviolability  of  Cabinet  councils  and  secrets.  But  whatever  may  have  been,  in  the 
remote  past,  the  recognized  force  of  this  rule,  the  frequent  and  conspicuous  disregard  of 
it  during  the  last  two  decades,  by  statesmen  of  the  highest  probity  and  rank,  leaves  the 
impression  that  the  rule  itself  has  lived  its  day  and  is  now  practically  dead  and 
inoperative.  Waiving,  however,  this  view,  it  is  clear  to  me  that,  were  the  rule  accepted 
as  now  binding  in  its  utmost  rigor,  it  could  have  no  application  to  this  case.  I  can  not 
be  misled  in  supposing  that  the  relations  between  the  President  and  the  Cabinet  are 
relations  of  honor,  and  that,  therefore,  they  cannot  be  held  to  oblige  any  member  of  his 
Cabinet  to  protect,  by  his  concealment,  and  thus  become  a  moral  accomplice  in  it  — 
any  criminal  or  wrongful  act  into  which  the  President  may  be  drawn  by  a  guilty 
ambition,  or  by  any  other  unworthy  passion  or  purpose.  In  a  word,  the  rule  never  has 
been  and  never  should  be  so  construed  as  to  become  a  shelter  for  perjury  or  crime. 

"  Your  associates  in  the  Cabinet,  —  Messrs  Seward  and  Stanton,  —  condemning  the 
rule  by  which  I  have  been  so  long  victimized,  declared  the  truth  fully  to  Judge  Bing- 
ham,  as  he  has  so  forcibly  set  forth  in  his  letter  to  which  you  are  referred." 

But,  as  I  have  said,  Mr.  Speed  would  not  speak.  I  can  only  account  for  it  by  the 
life,  circumstances,  and  education  of  the  man.  In  the  old  slave  States,  in  the  ante 
bellum  days,  there  existed  many  of  the  ideas,  traditions,  and  rules  of  personal  conduct  of 
the  feudal  times.  Things  touching  personal  honor,  or  trusted  to  it,  or  that  partook  of 
the  knightly  and  chivalrous,  were  esteemed  above  common  right,  common  honesty,  or 
common  sense.  Restrained  by  these  limitations  of  birth  and  tradition,  and  controlled 
by  his  chivalrous  idea  of  not  revealing  what  he  regarded  as  Cabinet  secrets,  Mr.  Speed 
would  not  speak,  even  to  save  a  public  officer  from  a  great  wrong,  or  his  personal  friend 
from  a  calumny  which  he  knew  would  walk  beside  him,  shadowing  and  embittering  a 
life,  noble  and  void  of  wrong,  down  to  its  close.  In  this  I  think  the  judgment  of  man 
kind  will  be  that  he  erred.  He  knew  that  this  charge  of  Andrew  Johnson  was  a  cruel 
falsehood.  Not  only  what  he  said,  but  what  he  refused  to  say,  proves  this.  His  letter 
of  March  30,  1873,  states  that  he  saw  the  record,  with  the  recommendation  attached  to 
it,  in  the  President's  office  before  the  execution.  Judge  Holt  did  not,  therefore,  "  with 
hold,"  as  the  President  alleged.  But,  stronger  than  this,  and  conclusive,  I  believe,  in 
the  mind  of  every  honest  and  unprejudiced  man,  were  Mr.  Speed's  utterances,  less  than 
two  years  ago,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Loyal  Legion  at  Cincinnati.  Mr.  Speed  read  a  paper 
at  the  meeting  of  this  society,  held  there  on  the  4th  of  May,  1887,  in  which  he 
said :  — 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT.  419 

"Only  the  group  of  fiends  who  stilled  the  pulsations  of  Lincoln's  great  heart,  paid 
the  penalty  of  the  crime.  A  maudlin  sentiment  has  sought  to  cast  blame  on  the  officials 
who  dealt  out  justice  to  these.  One  in  particular  is  my  distinguished  friend,  the  then 
Judge  Advocate  General  of  the  army.  Judge  Holt  performed  his  duty  kindly  and  con 
siderately.  In  every  particular  he  was  just  and  fair.  This  I  know;  but  Judge  Holt 
needs  no  vindication  from  me  nor  any  one  else.  I  only  speak  because  I  know  reflec 
tions  have  been  made,  and  because  my  position  enabled  me  to  know  the  facts,  and 
because  I  know  the  perfect  purity  and  uprightness  of  his  conduct."  Could  any  words 
say  in  stronger  form,  he  knew  that  in  this  matter  Judge  Holt  did  his  whole  duty,  and 
that  President's  Johnson's  charges  were  false?  Could  he  have  said,  "In  every  par 
ticular  he  was  just  and  fair,  this  I  know,"  if  he  did  not  know  and  intended  to  say  that 
he  knew  Judge  Holt  did  his  whole  duty  and  had  presented  this  recommendation  to 
mercy  to  President  Johnson?  But  what  he  refused  to  say  is  as  strongly  convincing  to 
my  mind  of  the  fact  that  the  recommendation  to  mercy  was,  to  his  knowledge,  duly 
brought  to  the  President's  attention,  and  was  read  and  considered  by  him  and  members 
of  his  Cabinet,  as  anything  he  has  affirmatively  stated. 

He  was  asked  by  Judge  Holt  to  state  whether  this  paper  was  or  was  not  before 
President  Johnson  and  his  Cabinet.  He  refused  to  answer  "  because  he  did  not  feel  at 
liberty  to  speak  of  what  was  said  at  Cabinet  meetings."  If  nothing  was  said  about 
the  recommendation,  if  no  such  paper  ever  came  before  the  Cabinet,  might  he  not  have 
so  stated;  might  he  not  have  said,  "No  such  matter  ever  came  before  the  Cabinet?  " 
This  would  not  reveal  any  Cabinet  secret,  would  come  nowhere  near  the  limitations  he 
had  prescribed  for  himself  "  not  to  speak  of  what  was  said  at  Cabinet  meetings." 

Is  it  not  the  inevitable  logical  conclusion  that  it  was  because  of  this  knowledge 
that  this  recommendation  had  been  before,  and  had  been  discussed  by,  the  President  and 
his  Cabinet,  and  his  determination  "not  to  speak  of  what  was  said  at  Cabinet  meet 
ings,"  that  he  would  not  speak? 

But,  finally,  my  friends,  has  not  the  faith  of  Judge  Holt  been  realized?  Has  not 
time  caused  the  truth  to  shine  forth  and  his  innocence  to  appear?  In  1873,  he  said: 
"An  abiding  faith,  however,  remains  with  me  that  the  public  will  do  these  witnesses 
justice,  and  myself,  also;  and  that  if  truth  has  power  to  disarm  the  cloud  of  calumny 
of  its  lightnings,  that  then,  standing  in  their  presence  and  under  their  shelter,  I  may 
well  feel  that  for  the  future  this  cloud  can  have  no  terrors  for  me." 

Saith  an  old  poet :  — 

"...     I  have  ever  thought 
Nature  doth  nothing  so  great  for  great  men 
As  when  she's  pleased  to  make  them  lords  of  truth. 
Integrity  of  life  is  fame's  best  friend, 
Which  nobly  beyond  death  shall  crown  the  end.' 


JUDGE  HOLT  AND  THE  LINCOLN  CONSPIRATORS. 

[IIoN.   HORATIO  KING,  in  the  Century  for  April,  1890.] 

THE  controversy  between  Judge  Holt  and  President  Johnson 
was  purely  a  question  of  veracity.  To  those  who  were  acquainted 
with  the  personal  characteristics  of  the  two  men  it  was  not  difficult 
to  decide  which  was  to  be  believed.  Judge  Holt  affirmed  that  in 
presenting  the  Official  Record  of  the  trial  of  the  assassination  of 
President  Lincoln,  he  presented  with  it,  and  attached  to  it  the 
petitition  of  certain  members  of  the  commission  for  a  commutation 
of  the  sentence  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  and  that  he  particularly  called  the 
attention  of  the  President  to  this.  President  Johnson,  two  years 
later,  when  engaged  in  an  effort  to  secure  nomination  to  the  presi 
dency,  denied  this.  The  papers  of  Col.  Burnett  and  Ex-Post 
master  General  King,  presented  in  this  appendix,  present  the  evi 
dence  that  may  be  fairly  said  to  forever  set  the  matter  at  rest, 
and  to  completely  vindicate  the  Judge  Advocate  General. 

IN  the  "  New  York  Tribune  "  of  September  2,  1873,  there  appeared  an  anonymous 
communication,  written  from  Washington  under  signature  of  "Truth,"  so  grossly  cal 
umnious  of  General  Joseph  Holt,  Judge  Advocate  General  in  the  trial  of  the  assassins 
of  President  Lincoln,  that  he  demanded  the  name  of  the  author,  who  proved  to  be  John 
T.  Ford,  of  Ford's  Theater,  where  the  fearful  tragedy  was  enacted,  and  who,  at  the 
time  was  committed  to  the  Carroll  Prison,  where  he  was  kept  —  on  suspcion,  it  is  pre 
sumed —  over  a  month,  when  he  was  liberated  without  being  brought  to  trial.  Nat 
urally  enough,  perhaps,  he  harbored  a  strong  prejudice  against  General  Holt,  and  sought 
to  defame  his  character  under  cover  through  the  press.  Among  other  things  he  ac 
cused  General  Holt  with  having  kept  Mrs.  Surratt  "  heavily  manacled  during  her  trial, 
and  also  of  virtually  depriving  her  of  reputable  counsel  " — referring  to  the  Hon.  Rev- 
erdy  Johnson,  who,  as  clearly  appears  by  his  argument,  which  was  upon  the  question  of 
jurisdiction,  voluntarily  withdrew,  leaving  the  case  in  the  hands  of  his  associate  counsel, 
Messrs.  Clampitt,  and  Aiken.  General  Holt  met  the  other  charge  by  a  letter,  addressed 
to  him,  under  date  of  September  4,  1873,  from  General  J.  F.  Hartranft,  who,  referring 
to  Ford's  article  in  the  "Tribune,"  said: 

I  think  it  proper,  in  justice  to  you,  to  declare  publicly  that  its  statements,  so  far  as 
they  relate  to  occurrences  within  my  own  observation,  are  absolute  falsehoods.  As 
marshal  of  the  court  before  whom  the  conspirators  were  tried,  I  had  charge  of  Mrs. 
Surratt  before,  during,  and  after  the  time  of  her  trial,  in  all  a  period  of  about  two  months, 
during  which  she  never  had  a  manacle  or  manacles  on  either  hands  or  feet;  and  the 

420 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT.  42  I 

throught  of  manacling  her  was  not,  to  my  knowledge:,  ever  entertained  by  any  one  in 
authority. 

One  would  suppose  that  proof  so  conclusive  ought  to  set  forever  at  rest  the  "  manacle  " 
charge;  and  as  regards  the  reference  to  Reverdy  Johnson,  it  is  plain  beyond  doubt  that 
"  had  he  desired  to  continue  in  the  case,  assuredly  there  was  no  power  that  could  have 
prevented  him  from  doing  so." 

Yet,  notwithstanding  this  and  the  overwhelming  testimony  on  the  other  more  serious 
and  wanton  charge  against  General  Holt  of  withholding  from  President  Johnson  the 
recommendation  of  five  members  of  the  court  that  the  sentence  of  Mrs.  Surratt  be  com 
muted  to  imprisonment  in  the  penitentiary,  John  T.  Ford  appears  again  in  the  "North 
American  Review  "  for  April,  1889,  in  an  article  reiterating  the  falsehoods  of  his 
anonymous  communication,  and  trying  to  show  that  General  Holt  was  guilty  of  with 
holding  from  President  Johnson  the  aforesaid  recommendation  of  Mrs.  Surratt  to 
mercy. 

Now,  in  as  brief  a  manner  as  possible,  I  will  recite  some  of  the  stronger  evidence, 
clearly  proving  the  falsity  of  this  last  charge,  made  first  before  President  Johnson's 
term  expired,  and  afterwards  by  Johnson  himself,  when  he  was  seeking  "  to  curry  favor 
with  the  South  in  the  hope  of  being  elected  to  the  presidency."  He  did  not  dare  to 
make  the  charge  while  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  Government,  because  he  knew  if  he  did 
that  General  Holt  would  instantly  demand,  as  he  did  ask  for,  in  1866,  a  court  of  inquiry, 
which  the  President  declined  to  order,  and  that  all  the  facts  and  circumstances  of  the 
case  would  come  out.  General  Holt,  I  think,  took  little,  if  any,  public  notice  of  this 
slander  until  he  found  it  had  received  the  indorsement  of  ex-President  Johnson,  when 
in  a  communication,  published  in  the  "Washington  Daily  Chronicle"  of  August  26, 
1873,  he  produced  the  most  incontrovertible  proof  that  "  President  Johnson  had  knowl 
edge  of,  considered,  and  commented  on  the  recommendation  of  Mrs.  Surratt  to  clem 
ency  by  members  of  the  court  before  her  execution."  It  had  been  publicly  asserted 
that  President  Johnson  approved  the  findings  of  the  court  "  without  having  seen  the 
recommendation  or  known  of  its  existence,"  although  it  was  known,  of  course,  to  every 
member  of  the  court,  and  it  was  also  made  known  to  Secretary  Stanton,  both  by  Gen 
eral  Holt  and  by  Judge  Bingham,  one  of  the  special  judge-advocates  in  the  trial,  imme 
diately  after  the  close  of  the  trial.  In  his  answer  to  General  Holt  (see  "Washington 
Daily  Chronicle"  of  November  12,  1873)  Mr.  Johnson  undertakes  to  support  his  asser 
tion  that  he  never  saw  that  recommendation  by  showing  that  it  was  omitted  in  Pittman's 
authorized  publication  of  the  proceedings  of  the  trial.  But  this  omission  was  fully  ex 
plained.  It  arose  simply  from  the  fact,  as  stated  by  Col.  H.  L.  Burnett,  special  judge- 
advocate,  who  superintended  the  publication,  that  "the  recommendation  to  mercy  con 
stituted  properly  no  part  of  the  record  of  the  trial,"  and  was  not  therefore  furnished 
by  him  to  Pittman  for  his  book.  In  a  letter  of  December  22,  1873,  to  General  Holt 
(see  "Washington  Daily  Chronicle,"  December  I,  1873)  Mr.  Pittman  also  says, 
"The  recommendation  in  favor  of  Mrs.  Surratt  was  not  inserted  in  my  book  for  the 
reason  that  it  formed  no  part  of  the  proceedings  of  the  trial;  it  was  not  mentioned  at 
any  open  session." 

Judge  Bingham  says : 

Before  the  President  had  acted  on  the  case  I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  call  the  attention 
of  Secretary  Stanton  to  the  petition  for  the  commutation  of  sentence  upon  Mrs.  Surratt, 
and  did  call  his  attention  to  it  before  the  final  action  of  the  President.  .  .  .  After 


422 


THE  CONTR  O  VERS  Y  BE  T  WE  EN 


the  execution  I  called  upon  Secretaries  Stanton  and  Seward  and  asked  if  this  petition 
had  been  presented  to  the  President  before  the  death  sentence  was  by  him  approved, 
and  was  answered  by  each  of  those  gentlemen  that  the  petition  was  presented  to  the 
President  and  was  duly  considered  by  him  and  his  advisers  before  the  death  sentence 
upon  Mrs.  Surratt  was  approved,  and  that  the  President  and  the  Cabinet,  upon  such 
consideration,  were  a  unit  in  denying  the  prayer  of  the  petition;  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr. 
Stanton  stating  that  they  were  present. 

Attorney-General  James  Speed,  in  a  letter  to  General  Holt,  March  30,  1873,  says: 

After  the  finding  of  the  military  commission  that  tried  the  assassins  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  before  their  execution,  I  saw  the  record  of  the  case  in  the  President's  office,  and 
attached  to  it  was  a  paper,  signed  by  some  of  the  members  of  the  commission,  recom 
mending  that  the  sentence  against  Mrs.  Suaratt  be  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life; 
and,  according  to  my  memory,  the  recommendation  was  made  because  of  her  sex.  I 
do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  speak  of  what  was  said  in  Cabinet  meetings.  In  this  I  know 
I  differ  from  other  gentlemen,  but  I  feel  constrained  to  follow  my  own  sense  of  pro 
priety. 

James  Harlan,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  states  positively  that  "after  the  sentence 
and  before  the  execution  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  I  remember  distinctly  the  discussion  of  the 
question  of  the  commutation  of  the  sentence  of  death  pronounced  on  her  by  the  court 
to  imprisonment  for  life,  had  by  members  of  the  Cabinet,  in  the  presence  of  President 
Johnson."  He  thinks  there  were  only  three  or  four  members  present,  and  when  he 
entered  the  subject  was  under  warm  discussion.  He  does  not  remember  hearing  read 
in  Cabinet  meeting  any  part  of  the  record  of  the  trial  or  the  recommendation  of  clem 
ency,  but  says  he  was  "told  that  the  whole  case  had  been  carefully  examined  by  the 
Attorney-General  and  the  Secretary  of  War,"  the  two  Cabinet  officers  more  immedi 
ately  concerned,  officially,  in  the  matter.  At  this  period  Mr.  Harlan  was  the  editor  of 
the  "Chronicle,"  and  in  reference  to  the  recommendation  to  mercy  he  said,  "Had 
such  a  paper  been  presented,  it  is,  in  our  opinion,  hardly  probable  that  it  would,  under 
the  circumstances,  have  induced  him  to  interfere  with  the  regular  course  of  justice." 

James  M.  Wright,  at  the  time  Chief  Clerk  of  the  Bureau  of  Military  Justice,  states 
that  when  President  Johnson  sent  a  messenger  to  General  Holt  requesting  him  to  bring 
the  papers  before  him  for  his  action,  the  recommendation  for  mercy  was  among  them, 
in  plain  sight,  and  that  when  the  case  came  back  through  the  Adjutant-General's  office 
it  remained  attached  to  the  other  papers. 

General  R.  D.  Mussey,  President  Johnson's  private  secretary, says,  "On  the  Wednes 
day  evening  previous  to  the  execution  (which  was  Friday,  July  7,  1865)  Mr.  Johnson 
said  to  me  that  he  was  going  to  look  over  the  findings  of  the  court  with  Judge  Holt,  and 
should  be  busy  and  could  see  no  one."  Two  or  three  hours  afterwards,  Mr.  Johnson 
came  out  of  the  room  where  he  had  been  in  conference  with  General  Holt  and  said  to 
him  (General  Mussey)  that  "  the  papers  had  been  looked  over  and  a  decision  reached." 

General  Mussey  continues: 

I  am  very  confident,  though  not  absolutely  assured,  that  it  was  at  this  interview  Mr. 
Johnson  told  me  that  the  court  had  recommended  Mrs.  Surratt  to  mercy  on  the  ground 
of  her  sex  (and  age,  I  believe).  But  I  am  certain  he  did  so  inform  me  about  that 
time,  and  that  he  said  he  thought  the  grounds  urged  insufficient,  and  that  he  had 
refused  to  interfere;  that  if  she  was  guilty  at  all,  her  sex  did  not  make  her  any  the  less 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT.  423 

guilty;   that  he,  about  the  time  of  her  execution,  justified  it;   that  he  told  me  that  there 
had  not  been  "women  enough  hanged  in  this  war." 

General  James  A.  Ekin,  one  of  the  commissioners  in  the  trial,  relates,  under  date  of 
August  27,  1867,  a  conversation  he  had  with  General  Holt  soon  after  the  trial,  in  which 
he  states  that  General  Holt  told  him  that  the  entire  case,  including  all  papers,  had  been 
placed  before  the  President,  and  that  his  particular  attention  had  been  directed  to  the 
recommendation  of  certain  members  for  the  commutation  of  the  sentence  of  Mrs. 
Surratt;  that  the  President  had  carefully  scrutinized  and  fully  considered  the  case,  in 
cluding  the  recommendation  to  mercy  on  behalf  of  Mrs.  Surratt;  but  that  he  could  not 
accede  to  or  grant  the  petition,  for  the  reason  that  there  was  no  class  in  the  South  more 
violent  in  the  expression  and  practice  of  treasonable  sentiments  than  the  rebel 
women,  etc. 

General  H.  L.  Burnett,  in  an  address  before  the  Loyal  Legion,  New  York,  on  the 
3d  of  April,  1889,  published  in  the  "  New  York  Tribune  "  of  the  next  day,  in  giving 
an  account  of  the  trial  and  explaining  why  the  recommendation  for  clemency  to  Mrs. 
Surratt  did  not  appear  in  Pittman's  book,  said: 

When  I  reached  my  office  from  the  War  Department  on  June  30,  or  possibly  on  the 
morning  of  July  I,  I  attached  the  petition  for  mercy  to  the  findings  and  sentences,  and 
at  the  end  of  them.  I  carried  the  findings  and  sentences,  and  the  petition  or  recom 
mendation,  and  delivered  them  to  the  Judge  Advocate  General  in  person;  and  I  never 
saw  the  record  again  until  many  years  after,  I  think  in  1873  or  1874.  After  Judge 
Holt's  interview  with  the  President,  on  July  5,  the  former  came  to  Mr.  Stanton's  office 
in  the  War  Department.  I  was  with  Mr.  Stanton  when  Judge  Holt  came  in.  Pie 
said,  "  I  have  just  come  from  a  conference  with  the  President  over  the  proceedings  of 
the  military  commission."  "  Well,"  asked  Mr.  Stanton,  "  what  has  he  done?  "  "He 
has  approved  the  findings  and  sentence  of  the  court,"  replied  Judge  Holt.  "What 
did  he  say  about  the  recommendation  to  mercy  of  Mrs.  Surratt?  "  "  He  said  that  she 
must  be  punished  with  the  rest;  that  no  reasons  were  given  for  his  interposition  by 
those  asking  for  clemency  in  her  case,  except  age  and  sex." 

Now,  is  there  a  fair-minded  person  living  who  would  require  more  or  better  proof- 
that  the  recommendation  for  the  commutation  of  the  sentence  of  Mrs.  Surratt  to  im 
prisonment  for  life  was  in  President  Johnson's  office,  and  that  the  question  was  fully 
considered  by  him  in  conference  with  several,  if  not  with  all,  of  the  members  of  his 
Cabinet  before  the  day  of  execution?  True,  no  one  states  that  he  actually  saw  it  in 
the  President's  hands,  though  Judge  Bingham  says  both  Secretaries  Stanton  and  Seward 
told  him  it  was  presented  to  him  and  duly  considered  before  the  death  sentence  was  ap 
proved.  But  Attorney-General  Speed,  a  direct  eye-witness,  could,  had  he  chosen  to 
speak,  have  made  this  fact  certain  beyond  doubt  or  cavil.  Mr.  Ford  professes  amaze 
ment  at  General  Holt's  anxiety  for  more  detailed  testimony  from  Mr.  Speed,  as  indi 
cated  by  their  correspondence  on  the  subject  in  the  "  North  American  Review  "  for 
July,  1888.  I  am  myself  free  to  confess  that  I  do  not  think  any  additional  proof 
whatever  is  at  all  necessary  for  General  Holt's  complete  vindication;  but  Mr.  Speed 
had  been  a  lifelong  friend  of  his,  and  knowing  that  he  saw  the  aforesaid  recommenda 
tion  in  the  President's  own  hands,  is  it  strange  he  should  insist  that  he  should  tell  him 
so?  He  may  be,  and  is,  I  think,  over-sensitive.  In  his  preface  to  Pittman's  book  cf 
the  trial,  Major  Ben:  Perley  Poore,  who  unwittingly  repeats  the  false  newspaper  man 
acle  story,  observes,  "General  Holt  is  an  inflexibly  upright  administrator  of  Justice, 


424  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON  AND  JUDGE  HOLT. 

yet  humanities  have  a  large  place  in  his  heart;  "  and  General  Mussey,  speaking  of  the 
call  made  by  General  Holt  at  the  White  House  on  the  morning  of  the  execution,  when 
Miss  Surratt  was  there  and  the  President  had  refused  to  see  her  or  any  one  in  her 
mother's  behalf, —  overruling,  also,  at  the  same  time,  Judge  Wylie's  writ  of  habaes 
corpus, —  says,  "  I  shall  never  lose  the  impression  made  upon  me  of  your  (General 
Holt's)  deep  pity  for  her  (Miss  Surratt)  and  of  the  pain  which  her  distress  caused 
you."  But  will  Mr.  Ford  or  any  other  of  General  Holt's  persistent  calumniators  be  so 
kind  as  to  state  why  General  Holt  should  have  been  so  anxious  for  Mr.  Speed  to  tell 
the  whole  truth,  had  he  not  known,  beyond  the  remotest  question,  that  it  would  have 
been  conclusive  testimony  in  his  favor?  Would  he  have  asked  Mr.  Speed  to  say  more 
than  he  did  say,  if  he  had  had  the  least  doubt  on  that  point?  Surely  not. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  go  into  the  evidence  regarding  either  Mrs. 
Surratt's  guilt  or  innocence;  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  brief  comment  on  the  following 
quotation  from  Mr.  Ford's  article,  wherein,  referring  to  Mrs.  Surratt,  he  says: 

The  very  man  of  God  who  shrived  her  soul  for  eternity  was  said  to  be  constrained  to 
promise  that  she  should  not  communicate  with  the  world.  As  the  poor  martyr  walked 
in  her  shroud  to  the  scaffold,  it  is  also  said  that  she  begged  the  priest  by  her  side  to  let 
her  tell  the  people  "she  was  innocent."  She  was  told  that  "  the  Church  was  permitted 
only  to  prepare  her  soul  for  eternity;  that  already  she  was  dead  to  all  else." 

This  looks  strangely,  to  say  the  least;  and  I  am  reminded  by  it  that  it  was  just  this 
which  the  late  John  M.  Brodhead,  Second  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury,  once  told  me 
was,  in  his  view,  conclusive  proof  of  Mrs.  Surratt's  guilt.  He  believed  that  had  not 
the  priest  known  from  her  confession  that  she  was  guilty,  he  would  never  have  prohib 
ited  her  from  declaring  her  innocence,  but  would  have  himself  insisted  on  it  to  the  last 
moment.  One  thing  is  certain,  there  was  no  man  living  who  more  fully  believed  in  her 
guilty  participation  in  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln  than  President  Johnson, 
who,  in  commenting  on  the  appeals  made  to  him  for  clemency,  said  at  the  time  to  Rev. 
J.  George  Butler  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  Washington,  that  "  he  could  not  be  moved;  for, 
in  his  own  significant  language,  "  l\frs.  Surratt  kept  the  nest  tJiat  hatched  the  egg." 

I  have  observed  that  General  Holt  at  one  time  asked  for  a  court  of  inquiry.  It  was 
in  September,  1866.  In  his  answer,  November  14,  1866,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Secretary 
of  War,  wrote  to  Brevet  Major-General  Holt,  Judge  Advocate  General,  as  follows : 

"  Your  letter  of  the  iithof  September  applying  for  a  court  of  inquiry  upon  certain  im 
putations  therein  mentioned  as  made  against  you,  of  official  misconduct  in  relation  to 
the  prosecution  of  Mrs.  Surratt  and  others  charged  with  the  assassination  of  the  late 
President  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  in  the  preparation  of  testimony  against  Jefferson 
Davis  and  others,  charged  with  complicity  in  said  crime,  has  been  submitted  to  the 
President  (Johnson),  who  deems  it  unnecessary  for  your  vindication  to  order  a  court  of 
inquiry. 

"  In  communicating  the  President's  decision,  it  is  proper  for  me  to  express  my  own 
conviction  that  all  charges  and  imputations  against  your  official  conduct  are,  in  my  judg 
ment,  groundless.  So  far  as  I  have  any  knowledge  or  information,  your  official  duties 
as  Judge  Advocate  General,  in  the  cases  referred  to,  and  in  all  others,  have  been  per 
formed  fairly,  justly,  and  with  distinguished  ability,  integrity  and  patriotism,  and  in 
strict  conformity  with  the  requirements  of  your  high  office  and  the  obligations  of  an 
officer  and  a  gentleman."  HORATIO  KING. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


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